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'aptslromlhe Camp Fire 




"THE NEWSPAPER MAN." 



WASHING r ON, D. C. : 
EMILY THORNTON CHARLES & CO., PUBLISHERS. 



I8«i. 



Price 75 cts. 



( SIX COPIES FOR $3, 

I when ordered from Publishers. 



FAGOTS 



FROM THE 



CAMP FIRE 



l^iyCiilii]Cr(^-^^ 



BY THE NEWSPAPER MAN." 

f 



.:j^lh/- 



WASHINGTON, D. C: 
EMILY THORNTON CHARLES & CO., PUBLISHERS. 

1881. 






Entered according to act of Congress, in the year iSSi, 

By L. J. DuPRE, 

In the office of the Librarian of Congres'i, at Washington. 



INTRODUCTION. 

PA" 

EMILY THORNTON CHARLES. 

(Eini/y Hawthorne.') 

In presenting a new book to the public, it is not necessary that the 
reasons therefor should be set forth in a long introduction or a 
tedious explanation. It is appropriate, however, that as the pub- 
lisher of this unique volume, I point out its strangely original 
features, which impelled me to take an interest in its success and 
commend it to the rank and file of our army of brave defenders, 
as well as to those who wore the gray. Many books have been 
written since the war, illustrative of battles, teeming with glowing 
descriptions, and claiming glorious victories won by mighty generals, 
as in the history of the campaigns written of or given by Grant, 
Sherman, Johnston, and others. Most of these volumes have 
been biographical, rather than historical. Of those last emanat- 
ing from the South, that of Hon. Alex. H. Stephens is, perhaps, 
the most just and unprejudiced. It gives expression to the views 
of a statesman, thinker, and scholar. It is therefore on a high plane, 
and may not, as it should, be thoroughly understood by the masses. 

" T'agots from the Camp Fire " is exceptional in its style and scope. 
Its graphic delineation of the coarsest phases of every-day life ; its 
portrayal of most thrilling incidents within the experience of soldiers 
and people of the South ; how they loved and hated, starved and 
died ; and the tender pathos which marks many pages, although told 
in the rude language of the uneducated, yet bear that "wondrous 
touch of nature which makes the whole world kin." 

While leaders of opposing armies may not acquiesce in all theories 
propounded in "Fagots from the Camp Fire," the common people, 
and especially soldiers who participated in these campaigns, will 
agree that these extraordinary narratives are as nearly literally true 
as it is possible to make them, after the lapse of fifteen years. 

That "truth is stranger than fiction," is often illustrated in these 
pages. The chief of scouts, who figures so conspicuously, holds a paper 
signed by General J. B. Hill, Provost Marshal -General of the Confeder- 



6 INTRODUCTION. 

ate Army, and endorsed "Approved" b}^ General Joseph E. Johnston, 
now a Member of Congress from Virginia, which states that Captain 
*** * >!c**:i:*;}:^ ^f Company B, 7th Texas Regiment, Cranberry's Bri- 
gade, served as a scout in the campaign of Georgia, and that he acquit- 
ted himself with great skill, courage, and adroitness. Thus the absolute 
accuracy of the "Captain's" statements is attested. The distinctive 
features, therefore, of this publication, are that it gives an insight into 
modes of life in the Gulf States and in Tennessee, which have never 
before been portrayed ; that the wild adventures and desperate deeds 
of Southern scouts are authentic incidents and true to the life ; and 
that it is the only book published which, while reciting such adventures, 
and depicting such scenes, is written from a Union standpoint. 
If the author at times advances theories which may not be approved, 
it must be remembered that these are one man's opinions in relation 
to subjects about which so few think alike. It must not be forgotten 
that a truthful and just picture of the country, people, and times could 
not have been given if the rudest, most ludicrous stories told had been 
omitted. 

Having, as the editor of the ]Vorh/ and Soldier, at Washing- 
ton, been the recipient of thousands of letters within the past few 
months, from veteran soldiers of, the Union ; knowing how eagerly the 
"boys in blue" read every scrap of war history, and having received, 
also, many tributes from Confederate ex-soldiers in praise of the sol- 
dier's paper, although it advocates the interests and tells of the 
deeds of their former foes, I earnestly believe that the time has come 
when dissension should be buried in the grave of oblivion, and that 
those who wore the blue should clasp hands with those who wore the 
gray— 

For both have suftei-ed and both h?ve lost, 
And victory won was at fearful cost. 

Therefore, commending this book to the public, we shall follow it, 
in a few weeks, with "The Soldier's Scrap-p]ook," a volume of cam- 
paign stories for the rank and file, in which many of the war incidents 
related by common soldiers will appear, with a collection of battle, 
decoration, and memorial poems. No one can conscientiously con- 
duct a newspaper in the interest of soldiers without a desire to 
benefit and immortalize those who so bravely endured danger and 
privation, suffering and death. Such, at least, has been my experi- 
ence ; and — 

My thought keeps guard with funeral tread, 

O'er silent bivouacs of the dead; 

O'er fields where friends and foes have bled ; 

O'er hospital and prison bed ; 

(J'er plains where death his phalanx led ; 

My mind is as a lettered tome, 

In which is writ, t/ny >ic\i- ca?iie home. 



PREFACE. 



I do not tell of great battles, or Generals, or Piesidents, or Kings, 
and therefore, do not write history. I only define the woes, triumphs, 
modes of thinking, living, fighting, and dying of scouts and common 
soldiers. I tell of wild adventures, hideous deaths, and marvelous 
escapes. I recite terrible incidents, others ludicrous, and others most 
pitiful ; and if a narrative be rude in expression, significance, or morals, 
it is because, if more tasteful, it would not be truthful. 

Mankind recks more of Thermopyla2, witli its handful of heroes, 
than of all the fields of filthy carnage on which Persians fell and 
Greeks triumphed. The Alamo, with its one hundred and sixty-five 
immortal defenders, leaving no survivors, will be the subject of song 
and story when Arbela, Cannae, and Austerlitz are forgotten. 

I cannot help thinking, therefore, that with such themes, and when 
I tell, too, of the woes of women, and of vices that sprang from war, 
and then of the negro and his relations to victors and vanquished, 
that this book will excite interest. This will hardly be lessened when, 
because of my apprehension of his virtues and character, I have 
chosen, without his consent, to dedicate this modest volume to Colo- 
nel W. W. Dudley, the maimed veteran whose devotion to the 
interests and fame of Union soldiers is only equaled by his generous 
estimate of the virtues of those who starved and fought for the hapless 
Confederacy. 

THE AUTHOR. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 
Scenes of Adventures. — Unionism in East Tennessee. — How Lincoln was Esteemed. — 
Tlie First Blood Spilled. — Heroism of Women 13 

CHAPTER H. 

Our First Expedition. — The March. — Bushwhackers.— Very like Assassination. — Too 
Much Corn \\Tiiskey. — A Love Scene. — Increasing Danger. — Involuntary Hos- 
pitality. — Spratling's Ire, and Baptism Extraordinary. — Bushwhackers Foiled. — 
The Fuiy of a Woman 17 

CHAPTER III. 

A Narrow Escape. — A Very Cold Bath. — Gorgeous Sceneiy. — Colder Still. — A 
Newspaper Man Spins a Yarn. — A Little Retrospection 27 

CHAPTER IV. 
The Newspaper Man Tells of His Escape from Burnside. — Compulsory Sermon- 
izing. — "Tristram Shandy." — A Solemn and Terrible Indictment. — The Good 
that Came of It. — Descent of the Mountain. — Hunger and Roast Hog. — Plans 
for the Future 31 

CHAPTER V. 

Patrolling the "Neutral Ground." — "Mountain Dew." — A Ghastly Spectacle. The — 
Tree of Death. — Bushwhackers and Great Fright. — Successful Expedition. — 
Cowardice Punished. — Mamie Hughes. — Day Dreams. — Southern Men and 
Women as affected by the War. — Negro Slaves and Southern Women. — 
Southern Planters. — Mamie's Home and Negro Slavery 36 



lo CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER VI. 

The Fascinating Deserter and Gay Widow. — An Accommodating Negro. — The 

Capture. — Unearthing a Deserter. — --Ef this 'ere Umbaril would shoot." — A 

Corruptible Juvenile. — A Woman who loved Whiskey, and how it mollified 

Her 44 

CHAPTER Vn. 
Soldierly Courage. — Another Deserter. — A Mountain Beauty. — A Dying Soldier. — 
"He took up his Bed and Walked." — .Spratling falls in Love. — Ash-Cakes. — 
Ellison Escapes 49 

CHAPTER Vni. 
The Underground Railway. — A Desperate Adventure. — Secession in Kentucky and 
Tennessee. — In a Bushwhackers' Den. — An Heroic Woman. — The Catastro- 
phe. — A Graveyard Scene. — The Ghost. — A " Noti.ss." — A Woman's Eloquence 
and Matchless Patriotism. — A Monument to her Fame 55 

CHAPTER IX. 

Conservatism.— Bell and Douglas. — Andrew Johnson. — "Rebels" and "Bush- 
whackers.''- — ^Nlamie Hughes and the Bushwhacker 64 

CHAPTER X. 
A Fat and Enthusiastic Widow. — General .Sherman makes an Heroic Speech and 
buys a Turkey. — The Pedagogue moralizes. — Terrible Condition of East Ten- 
nessee. — Effects of the War on the South. — Demagogues. — Landon C. Haines' 
Father 67 

CHAPTER XI. 

Within the Federal Lines. — Friendly Negroes. — Pursued by Federal Cavalry. — An 
Unequal Race for Life. — Fighting, Freezing, and Feasting. — Cold Water Bap- 
tism. — Exhaustion. — An Imposing Spectacle. — A Friendly Proposition. — In 
Search of Comfort. — Baked "'Possum and Taters." — Welcome Repose. — Poor 
Whites. — Elisha Short's C)pinions. — The Sun Rises. — Arduous .Tasks. — General 
Joseph E. Johnston and the Scouts. — A Scout's Mode of Life. — The General 
listens to a Love Story 71 

CHAPTER XII. 
The Pedagogue Talks of Mamie Hughes. — Physical Wonders of East Tennessee. — 
Sequatchie Valley. — An Ancient Ocean. — Mamie Philosophizes. — The Negro as 
a Soldier ^i 

CHAPTER XIII. 
Spratling and Bessie Starnes. — The Pedagogue corrects a Chapter in the History of 
the War. — Who killed General John H. Morgan? — How he was Esteemed. — 
The Camp Fire. — The Newspaper Man and the Pedagogue. — A Political Dis- 
cussion. — Absurdties of Revolution. — The Two Nations and the Confederate 
War- Song 86 



CONTENTS. II 

CHAPTER XIV. 
Bessie Starnes. — Spratling's Story. — His Enormous Strength saves his Life. — Two 
Prisoners. — Two Dead .Scouts. — Spratling's Confession 95 

CHAPTER XV. 
Around the Camp Fire. — The Newspaper Man Again. — " Put me down among the 
Dead." — Tlie Newspaper Man as a Resurrectionist. — Bottled up. — Every Man 
his own Ghost 100 

CHAPTER XVI. 
The Newspaper Man spins another Yarn. — A Porcine Steed. — Sim Sneed in the 
Role of John Gilpin. — He disperses a Battery. — A Dead Dog. — " The Divel 
.Sure." — Denouement 105 

CHAPTER XVH. 

Spratling makes a Descent upon the Bushwhackers. — An Extraordinay Meeting. — 
Spratling suddenly loses his Appetite. — At Headquarters. — Camp Life. — Woman 
in War and Politics. — Why this Book was written. — Camp Fire Morals. — An 
Illustration. — A Ludicrous and Pitilul Story. — An Old Woman Eh^quent. — "The 
Foremostest -Sin that God Almighty will go about Forgiving." 109 

CHAPTER XVIII. 
Death of Major General Van Dorn.— A True Story and Sad Enough. — The Northern 
Version i iS 

CHAPTER. XIX. 
The Song that destroyed the Confederacy and dissolved its Armies. — Most Remark- 
able Military Expedition of which Human History Tells or Genius ever Conceived 
or Executed. — The Memorable Campaign of Moral Effects. — Its Painful and 
Pitiful Results. — An Apparition. — The Great Explosion in Knoxville. — Death 
of Bill Carter 123 

CHAPTER. XX. 

The Newspaper Man Tells of Recent Designations of the Route of De .Soto. — Hi.s 

.-Vpothecaiy's Scales and Nest of Horseshoes. — The Monk's Rosary. — Governor 

Gilmer's Castilian Dagger Handle. — Outline of De Soto's Route Defined. — 

His Burial Place 133 

CHAPTER XXI. 

Physical and Climatic Charms of East Tennessee. — The Captain and Spratling Pur- 
sued by Cavalry. — A Bloody Day's Work. — .Spratling Visits Bessie Starnes. — 
Wounded. — The Conflagration and Flight 142 

CHAPTER XXII. 

The Captain Pursued as a Horse-Thief. — How he Escaped very Narrowly. — A 

Brave Boy. — Deposition of General Joseph E. Johnston. — How he Bade us 

Adieu. — Woes of Richmond. — The Famed Cemeteiy of Virginia's Capital. — 

The Poor Child.— Its Burial Place 152 



12 CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER XXIII. 

Woes of the People. — How Endured. — An Ancient Georgia Village. — Curious Story 

'about Governor Gilmer and William H. Crawford. — Slave Life Fifty Years Ago- 

— ^Joseph Henry Lumpkin. — How African Slavery became African Servitude" 

— Providential Preparation for Freedom .• 162 

CHAPTER XXIV. 

The Negro as an Inseparable Adjunct of Southern Industry. — " Missis, de Yanks 
is acomin'." — The Schoolmaster on the Character and Conduct of the Negro. — 
" Yaller-Gal Angels." 167 

CHAPTER XXV. 
Newspaper Life. — Journalism under Difficulties. — A Journalistic Repast. — Jamaica 
Rum 172 

CHAPTER XXVI. 
Lieutenant Hughes Recites his Adventures m Southern Missouri. — Wonders of the 
Lo\^'lands. — Reckless Freaks of Dame Fortune. — A Rebel Negro and Narrow 
Escape — Two Unnamed Confederate Fleroes 175 

CHAPTER XXVII. 
General Grant Talks Somewhat. — Sam McCown. — The Frightful Demon of the 
"Inland Sea." — Bickerstaft's Memorable Ride. — Patlanders of Pinch 183 

CHAPTER XXVIII. 
An Extraordinary Escape. — We Take Water. — A Voice in the Wilderness. — Was 
it a Spirit? — A True Man and Heroic Wife 188 

CHAPTER XXIX. 
The Hughes Farmhouse assailed l^y Federal Soldiers.— Heroism of Bessie Starnes. — 
Conclusion 193 



CHAPTER I. 



Scenes of Adventures. — Unionism in East Tennessee. — How Lincoln was Esteemed. — 
The first Blood Spilled. — Heroism of Women. 

After Grant's victory and Bragg'.s defeat, at Missionary Ridge, in 
November, 1863, and after the repulse of Hooker's Corps at Ringgold 
Gap by Cleburne's Division, Federal and Confederate armies went 
into winter quarters — the former at Chattanooga ; the latter, at 
Dalton, Georgia. Detachments of Federal forces occupied positions, 
at short intervals, from Knoxville to Chattanooga, and thence to 
Bridgeport on the Tennessee River. Small bodies of Union soldiers 
held each railway station between Bridgeport and Nashville. Over 
this road supplies and re-enforcements for Sherman's army of invasion 
were drawn, and an army was required for its protection. General 
Joseph E. Johnston, commanding the Confederate forces, had his 
headcpiarters at Dalton, thirty-eight miles from Chattanooga, drawing 
supplies over the railway from Atlanta. General Pat Cleburne's Divis- 
ion was encamped along the brow of Tunnel Hill, eight or ten miles 
north of Dalton. In February, this cantonment was transferred to a 
point east of Dalton on the Spring Place Road. Our cavalry held the 
line from Kinton's Farm, nine miles, to Varnell's station, on the 
railway from Dalton to Cleveland, and thence along the hills to the 
Stone Church, just south of Ringgold Gap, thence to Villanow 
and to the boundary line of Alabama. The railway distance from 
Dalton to Chattanooga is thirty-eight miles. Between these points 
occurred many of the strange and extraordinary incidents and adven- 
tures of which subsequent pages will tell. 

The area of country between the two armies within which scouts 
operated, having the average width of fifteen miles, extended from 
Knoxville, in East Tennessee, about one hundred and eighty miles, 
to Huntsville, Alabama. Generals Sherman and Johnston both 
employed large numbers of scouts, but collisions between these were 



14 FAGOTS FROM THE CAMP FIRE. 

neither as frequent nor dangerous as between Southern scouts and 
citizens of the country, the greater number of whom were devoted to 
the cause for which Sherman fought. The domestic enemies of the 
South were the more dangerous, not only because more blood-thirsty 
and murderous than soldiers, but because it was quite impossible to dis- 
tinguish these bushwhackers, as they were termed in the partisan jargon 
of the period, from unoffending country clodhoppers. 

We contemplated the most innocent-looking and rudely clad country 
bumpkins with keen suspicion. They recognized us at a glance, and 
hied away, as soon as our backs were turned, to tell our enemies of 
the course we had taken and of our probable resting place for the 
night. After asking directions from such persons, which we never 
followed, we were accustomed to listen for the firing of signal guns, of 
which we comprehended the import as well as they to whose ears they 
were addressed. With the armed bushwhacker we knew how to deal, 
but were helpless in the presence of those who seemed wholly intent 
upon the perfection of crops and cultivation of fields and gardens. 
We soon learned that most innocent-looking farmers underwent sud- 
den and violent transformations of conduct and character. Rustiest, 
most illiterate and rudely clad plowmen became even demoniacal in 
blood-thirstiness, and in this were wholly unlike our Northern public 
enemies. From hollow trees, or from beneath ledges of stones on 
mountain-sides hard -by the farm-house, concealed breech-loaders were 
drawn, and assassins' bullets sent many Confederate soldiers to un- 
timely graves. 

Women and children were as false to the South and as true to the 
Union as fathers, brothers, and sons, and woe to the Confederate 
soldier, recognized as such, who followed paths into which he was guided 
by these loyalists. Many an unnamed grave tells where unknown and 
forgotten scouts heedlessly confided in statements made by matronly 
dames or blushing maidens. Often were brave men lured into modest 
cottages by proftered food temptingly spread before the weary and 
hungry. The feast was one of death. While hunger and thirst were 
appeased, and repose cunningly invited, an imseen member of the 
household sped away to mountain fastnesses to carry tidings of the 
scout's" folly to the bushwhackers' strong-hold. The messenger re- 
turned with enough resolute men to render escape impossible. Matron, 
maid, or boy hastened from every mountaineer's home to tell bush- 
whackers the route of every body of Confederate scouts that traversed 
the so-called neutral ground between the two great armies of the North 
and South. Such was the condition of affairs and such the conduct 
of the masses of the people, especially in Eastern Tennessee. The 
people were poor. They read the Bible and Brownlow's Whig. They 
listened to Andrew Johnson, if Democrats; to Brownlow and Nelson, 
if Whigs; and thus, as political thinkers, were led, almost en masse, 
into thorough Unionism. The strongest passion of these illiterate 
descendents of heroes of King's Mountain and Cowpens impelled them 
to kill. *' Death to enemies of the Union !" was the legend inscribed 



FAGOTS FROM THE CAMP FIRE. 15 

upon their hearts and memories. The bushwhackers' definition of 
war was written accurately in tears and blood, and flame and famine 
bv General Sherman. It was simple destructiveness. It meant to 
kill. 

At this period President Lincoln had won little popular sympathy 
or affection among Southern loyalists. His potency came later and 
was greatest after his death. Then Eastern Tennessee and Northern 
Georgia celebrated his apotheosis, awarding to his name and memory 
profounder respect and more honest reverence than was conceded by 
those who were near enough the veritable demi-god to discover human 
frailties. 

These facts are defined that Northern people may confess some 
inadecjuate appreciation of the sturdy, honest devotion of those men 
and women whose sacrifices in behalf of the Union were a thousand- 
fold greater than of men who bought substitutes, paid taxes, speculated 
in shoddy and bonds, and celebrated the Fourth of July and Black 
Friday. 

East Tennessee loyalists believed that the enemies of the Union 
deserved death, and death it was, and this internecine war, waged by 
one against another household, or by members of the same family, 
arrayed against one another, was the most relentless, bloody, and 
ruinous that ever desolated hearths and homes. 

Rarely, very rarely, was it a "rebel's" good fortune to encounter 
in this region devotees at the shrine of " Confederatism." Now and 
then, as these pages will show, this "Switzerland of America" pro- 
duced a secessionist, as earnest, devout, and active as were Union men 
like Crutchfield and Brownlow. It may not be improper to suggest 
that the first blood spilled in the great conflict was not, as is commonly 
supposed, at Alexandria, Virginia, when the zouave fell, but in Chat- 
tanooga, when "Bill" Crutchfield, afterwards, when Reconstruction 
progressed, a Member of Congress, was stricken down in his own hotel 
in Chattanooga. Mr. Jefferson Davis, having resigned his seat in the 
United States Senate, was on his way to Jackson, Mississippi. His 
first .speech in behalf of the "new nation" was made at Bristol; his 
second, at Chattanooga, and in the bar-room of the old hotel, of wliich 
"Bill" Crutchfield was proprietor. Davis was defining numberless 
wrongs inflicted upon the South, and woes that had befallen the coun- 
try in the election of Lincoln, when Crutchfield, intolerant as Davis, 
pronounced Davis' statements false. One John W. Vaughn, sheriff 
of Monroe County, afterwards made a brigadier by Davis, instantly, 
in defence of Davis' wounded honor, broke a black bottle, snatched 
from the shelf of the bar-room, over Crutchfield's head. The bleed- 
ing, stunned Crutchfield was borne helpless and senseless from the 
scene of conflict, shedding the first blood spilled in the war. It 
trickled out of East Tennessee into the mighty torrent that soon after- 
ward flowed, steadily and sluggishly, along the course of Sherman's 
march to the sea. 

The neutral ground contained few inhabitants entertaining the 



1 6 FAGOTS FROM THE CAMP FIRE. 

feelings or convictions of Vaughn, and Northern, encountered r 
such dangers as Southern, scouts surmounted or evaded at every ste 
in Eastern Tennessee and Northern Georgia. Now and then a woma 
Vv'as loyal to the cause of the South, and the bravest and truest of oi 
race, whether adhering to the Union or to the Confederacy, wei 
fearless women of the mountains and valleys between the two armie: 
When England and Scotland were at war, the Border produced n 
more illustrious examples of splendid heroism or of nobility of cha 
acter, or of fidelity to a cause espoused, than this mountainous, rugge 
district in which incidents occurred of which these pages tell. Som 
Walter Scott will yet make posterity remember, when traversin 
Northern Alabama, Northern Georgia, Western North Carolina, an 
Eastern Tennessee, that a sort of sanctity overshadows this region, an 
that it is holy ground, baptized in the blood of a border war moi 
deadly than that waged with the rude weapons of a rude age in gler 
and mountain fastnesses of Scotland. For such a story-teller th 
modest volume contains facts on which fiction might build a pantheo 
peopled with gods of heroism and patriotism. 



CHAPTER II. 



Our First Expedition. — The March. — Bushwhackers. — Very like Assassination. — Too 
Much Corn Whiskey. — A Love Scene. — Increasing Danger. — Involuntary Hos- 
pitality. — Spratling's Ire, and Baptism Extraordinary. — Bushwhackers Foiled. — 
The Fury of a Woman. 

What follows in this narrative is nothing more than a plain recital 
of facts drawn from memoranda made at the time. Written with a 
pencil eighteen years ago these are not always perfectly legible, but 
enough can be deciphered to recall vividly the minutest details of 
incidents strongly impressed upon the memory of one only eighteen 
years of age when he became a chief of scouts in the army of Joseph 
E. Johnston. 

On the day abvoe mentioned Major-General Pat Cleburne, of 
the most skillful and bravest of General Johnston's subordinates, 
selected six men, of whom I was given charge, instructing us to make 
the circuit of Sherman's army. We were to fix the location of each 
command, define the force at each point and the strength of each 
fortified position. We were to go first to Charleston on the Hiwassee 
River and learn what progress was making in rebuilding the railway 
bridge burned there by the retreating Confederates. 

After a toilsome march of thirty miles, avoiding public highways, 
we rested for the night at Red Clay, a little village on the boundary 
line of Tennesseer- We dared not make a fire. Armed with Henry 
rifles and Colt's repeaters and having forty rounds of ammunition and 
rations for five days, our journeying had been toilsome and fatiguing. 
Our conversations were conducted in an undertone. We moved even 
cautiously in the thicket in which we were concealed, fearing that the 
slightest unusual noise would attract the attention of some drowsy 
Federal sentinel. 

Surely one who has never occupied such a position or confronted 
such dangers can never comprehend the emotions excited by our 

2 



1 8 FAGGOTS FROM THE CAMP FIRE. 

suddenly changed condition. For months and years we had consti- 
tuted inseparable parts of a great mass of armed men. ^Ve were 
never conscious of personal danger. The possibility of capture or 
death, save in battle, never occurred to us. We had never a thought 
for ourselves. Parts of a vast machine, we lived and moved as such 
until personal identity was almost unrecognized. But here were six 
men — a seventh, a newspaper man, joined us at Charleston — giving 
only voluntary obedience to one of their number. We were not only 
removed from the mass of which we had become an inseparable part, 
but thrown, in the midst of extraordinary dangers, wholly upon our 
own resources as men and as individuals. We could not sleep. We 
were in the enemy's lines, and when fatigue wooeci repose and fitfully 
closed our eyes, we dreamed of spies dangling at ropes' ends beneath 
shadows of great oaks that stretched mighty arms above our resting- 
place. 

Wherever we slept one or two men always stood as sentinels until 
we resumed our march. We will never forget the feeling of unutter- 
able solitariness and hopeless helplessness that possessed nerves and 
soul, and almost paralyzed us when we lay down on the frozen hillside 
to rest on the night of December 14, 1863. We could hear the dull 
roar of innumerable human voices and footsteps about the camp fires 
of Sherman's countless legions. 

We stood guard in turn, each serving four hours. After daylight 
we dared to have fire enough to prepare strong coffee, most grateful 
to men who had passed a bitterly cold December night upon the bare 
earth, each covered by a single blanket. 

At daylight we resumed our march, moving in Indian file along the 
verge of the mountain range's summit. At noon we approached the 
Big Blue Spring. One of our number ascended a tree Avith a field 
glass, whence he scanned hills and valleys on every hand. "We made 
coffee, rested an hour, and marched towards Cleveland where, at 
nightfall, we bivouacked. 

We could hear the tirum-beat of the Federal garrison and ourselves 
next morning were aroused by reveille. We loitered two days gather- 
ing information from the people of the place in reference to the 
strength of the garrison and examining for ourselves the earthworks, 
and marched to the Hiwassee River just below the village of Charles- 
ton. Here, as details hereafter given will show, our small force of 
six men was recruited by the accession of a seventh, a newspaper man, 
who had escapeci from Knoxville when the place was captured by 
General Burnside. 

We wanted other edibles in sujjstitution for hard-tack and bacon. 
It was agreed that Spratling, a fearless, gigantic young soldier, and I 
should apply at a farm-house fifteen miles away, said to have a well- 
stocked larder, to buy such provisions as were required. We had 
learned that the farmer we proposed to visit was a peaceful Union 
man, but were advised to be watchful. "He might betray us." We 
reached his pretty cottage late in the afternoon, and ate at his table, 



FAGGOTS FROM THE CAMP FIRE. 19 

paying for the privilege. We were not his invited guests, and as such, 
owed him nothing. Spratling said that this reflection, ever afterward, 
gave him great satisfaction. The farmer and his ivife agreed at table 
that they would send a well-freighted market wagon next morning to 
our camp. The wife was especially demonstrative, suggesting that we 
might have a fire and occupy a small house a few rods away in a 
corner of the yard. We expressed a proper sense of gratitude and 
soon sought this resting place. We built a fire, talked cheerily half 
an hour to our kindly host, spread blankets before the blazing faggots, 
smoked our pipes, and then, bidding him good night, with repeated 
assertions of gratitude, rested on the floor. 

But neither Spratling nor I slept. As soon as the sound of Mr. 
!McMath's footsteps was inaudible, Spratling whispered : 

'T mean to watch that old coon. I think he is playing falsely, 
and if he seek to betray us, he won't find Spratling stupidly sleeping." 

I concurred in this, and we covered the blazing faggots in the fire- 
place with ashes. When the flames were extinct, Spratling and I, 
lying on our faces, crept out of the hut. One stood as sentinel while 
the other slept just outside the enclosure about the buildings. An 
hour had hardly passed when Spratling, then on watch, saw McMath 
issue from his doorway with his wife. She even followed him to the 
stable, urging him to ride "hard and fast" to the bushwhackers' camp, 
not more, as we learned afterward, than five miles av\'ay. 

We now knew what was coming. 'We discussed the pro})riet\' of 
leaving ; but Spratling insisted that he must await the issue. 

'T would never forgive myself," he said, "if I fled without punish- 
ing that old scoundrel's treason to pretended friendship and hospitalty. 
If he return alone, we will capture and send him south. If he come 
with five or a dozen bushwhackers, we will stampede or seize their 
horses, kill as many of the enemy as possible, and take refuge in the 
creek bottom which we examined this afternoon." 

Spratling and I had slept two hours each, when we heard the clatter 
of coming hoofs. We counted the bushwhackers as they entered the 
gate, near which they left their horses. The mistress of the cottage 
met them at the door. She had been keeping watch, and would have 
discovered our "change of base" if we had not crawled noiselessly, 
lying on our faces, out of the cabin. 

It was nearly five o'clock in the morning when we could see that 
some one of the eight persons in the house always watched the cabin 
door. McMath's wife was now actively engaged going in and out of 
the kitchen, and soon breakfast was spread. It is needless to suggest 
that Spratling and I were not asked to share this early matutinal meal. 
"We saw the good, fat dame convey a significant brown jug, soon 
eloquent, as through all the ages of the world's history, of devilish 
deeds, into the hallway occupied by the six bushwhackers. They 
drank. It was the last draught of alcohol that ever went hissing 
down the throats of more than one of those terrible men, who thus 
nerved themselves for bloody, murderous deeds. 



20 FAGGOTS FROM l^HE CAMP FIRE. 

Spratling and I had gone to the rear of the house, nearer the woods, 
and were at a point whence we could see distinctly every person in the 
hallway. In this, as stated, the breakfast-table was spread. We were 
now protected by the palings, shrubbery, and peavines in the 
garden between us and the house. The sun had hardly lighted up 
with earliest ra3^s the tree-tops on the highest hills when the bush- 
whackers, McMath watching the door of the cabin we had vacated, 
sat about the breakfast-table. Their guns were ranged, leaning against 
the wall, on either side of the broad, open hall. 

Our opportunity had come. We were about to avenge, in advance, 
our own contemplated deaths. 

Three bushwhackers sat on either side of the table. We crawled 
along the palings till we reached a point from which only two of the 
enemy and Mrs. McMath, who sat at the head of the table with her 
back towards us, were visible. Three men in the line of each of our 
shots, we leveled our rifles. I gave the word "fire," in a hoarse 
whisper. I abhorred the necessity. A cold tremor ran along my 
nerves. I shuddered. 

We would have repeated the shots, but feared that we might kill the 
woman. Such were her screams when her guests fell dead or 
wounded, that her more timid, treacherous husband was wholly help- 
less. While he was wringing his hands and running from one fallen 
friend to another and then to the relief of his suffering wife, we 
crossed the enclosure, and selecting two of the best horses and lead- 
ing two each, rode away towards our encampment. 

We were not apprehensive of pursuit. McMath had asked and we 
had spoken falsely as to the distance and direction of our camp and 
knew that some hours must elapse before he could summon a force 
that would dare to follow us. He supposed we had straggled from a 
command only seven or eight miles distant, not less than five hun- 
dred strong. While we apprehended little danger at the hands of the 
bushwhackers, the facts would be noised abroad and we could not 
remain in safety about Charleston. We congratulated ourselves on 
the acquisition of just horses enough, fresh and strong, to mount my 
footsore and weary men. 

We had ridden three or four miles before we began to talk of what 
had happened and of what we had done. It was the first killing that 
either Spratling or I had had ever perpetrated, except in an open field 
and fair fight, and both confessed ([ualms of conscience. 

"How could we help it ? " asked Spratling. "If we had not killed 
them, they came armed to kill us. If we had fought them openly, we 
would have fallen, and certainly by suicidal hands. To fight is to 
kill, and this is our business, and there was no escaping the necessity 
for methods we adopted. If our numbers had equalled theirs, we 
should have resorted, and properly, to the same stratagems. General 
Sherman is right. War means murder, desolation, destruction, and 
death. We are warriors," said Spratling. "We are murderers and 
horse-thieves, I greatly fear," was my earnest answer. 



FAGGOTS FROM THF CAMP FIRE. 21 

Spratling confessed that he did not like it, that his conscience was 
troubled, and that he was almost sorry, though we had six horses, 
that he had not assented when I proposed to leave the bushwhacker's 
place before his coadjutors came. Hurrying events and impending- 
dangers made us forget everything but the fact that our speedy 
departure from Charleston was a matter of urgent necessit}'. 

We had already spent two days at Charleston on the Hiwassee 
watching the process of rebuilding the railway bridge. Thence we 
rode to Pikeville, in the valley between Walden's Ridge and the 
Cumberland Mountains. Late in the afternoon we came to the 
Tennessee River five miles below the little village, Decatur. A skiff, 
or dug-out, was soon discovered. But while a comrade and I had been 
searching for such a means of crossing, others discovered a whiskey 
distillery. They and their canteens, in the absence of the proprietor 
of the gum-tree pipe through which the alcohol flowed, were soon 
well filled. We cro.ssed the river, concealed the dug-out in a thicket 
for possible future use, and a mile farther west, near a country road 
and the river shore, rested in a dense v/ood. Our sentinel stood near 
the highway. Unhappily, his canteen was bursting with raw, corn 
whiskev. He drank too deeply, and when a wagon with a dozen 
countr)' girls and boys occupying it came rattling over the stony road- 
way, echoing songs and laughter burdening the cold night wind with 
the delicious music of women's voices, our sentinel could not restrain 
himself. He knew that the jnirty of revellers came from a farm-house 
we had passed during the day. and were celebrating a country wed- 
ding. Brandishing his musket, he confronted the roysterers, demand- 
ing instant surrender. The women were frightened beyond measure. 
Their screams drew us to the spot. Our sentinel was holding the rein 
of one of the horses attached to the vehicle, and insisting that its occu- 
pants must come down and surrender. He brandished his repeater, 
and when we appeared, the }Oung men, seeing that resistance would 
be worse than idle, descended from the wagon. They Avere assured 
that no harm was intended, and that this intoxicated sentinel and 
others like him need only be appeased. 

What a vision of beauty I beheld in the perfect face and form of 
one of those mountain lassies! The luminous s}jlendor of her great, 
lustrous black eyes lighted u}) her pale, beautiful features, as I first 
beheld her beneath the clear moonlight gilding hills and valleys, with 
matchless radiance that fascinated me. Why. I could not tell, but 
frightened as she was, — perhaps because I was onl)- a }ear or two her 
senior, — she ran to my side and seized the hand that clasped my rifle. 
I looked into her pale, beautiful face, amazed and startled by her 
charms. I had never imagined that a woman's figure, eyes, pleading 
face, limitless confidence, and silent appeal for protection could be so 
eloquent. The hot blood, when I pressed her hand, rushed to my 
face. I said to her, " You shall not be harmed," and then added, 
with much hesitation, ''Won't you tell me your name, and where do 
vou live? " 



22 FAGGOTS FROM THE CAMP FIRE. 

" O, yes," she answered, "my name is Mamie Hughes. I am here 
visiting relatives. Mv home is on the other side of the Union army 
in Georgia, and I can't get there now." 

Here Mamie was suddenly silent. She suspected, I thought, that I 
was a "rebel," but was doubtful. I was conscious that I could trust 
her. Her wonderful face and eloquent eyes had won my confidence, 
if not my heart, and. I said to her, in a whisper, "I am a Southerner. 
Say nothing. If you utter a word, Ave seven will be hanged as spies." 

At this moment our boisterous, half-drunken sentinel was insisting 
that the fiddler should organize cotillions and that we should dance 
by moonlight. Thinking to humor the fancy of my intoxicated men 
and let the merry-makers go in good humor, I said : 

" Yes ; we will dance by moonlight, and these gentlemen liere shall 
drink with us and Ave Avill part friends, regretting that Ave frightened 
these beautiful young ladies." 

This apology exasperated the drunken sentinel, Avho draAvled out, 
"Friends! did you say, Captain? 'i'hese iieoijle are d d Yanks." 

"The rest of them are, but I am nor," Avhispered Mamie, pressing 
closely to my side. 

It Avas needless to attempt further concealment of our character or 
purposes. I stated to the oldest of the East Tennesseeans that Ave 
Avere Kentuckians on our Avay to join the Southern army and Avere 
going out by Avay of Cle\'eland. I said further that our comrade AA'as 
only impelled by too much Avhiskey AA^ien he arrested them and that I 
regretted the fact as did my associates. 

There \A'as no response. The young men Avere sullen and silent and 
only the pretty Mamie beside me pressed my hand very gently. 
Another girl, more fearless than the rest, said, laughing: 

" Oh ! it makes no difference. Let us make a night of it and dance 
Avith these soldiers. What a jolly story it Avill be to tell. ^Vc are 
prisoners of Avar and can't help ourselves. Let us dance." 

"Surely," I answered, "no harm is intended, and I Avould gladly 
have those gentlemen there join us. Such opportunities do not often 
present themselves, and Ave soldiers must take adA^antage of them." 

I Avhispered to Spratling, Avhen the young East Tennesseeans made 
no reply to my proposition, to see that neither of them left Avhile 
we danced. He stalked out, a very giant, into the roadAvay and 
stood like a massive statue of granite, his presence a significant 
menace. 

The fiddler, half-drunken, began his task. I led in the dance Avith 
Mamie Hughes. She soon entered into the spirit animating us and. 
forgot that Ave AA'ere strangers. I Avas lapped in the joys of El)'sium. 
I forgot the lapse and value of time. I told in Avhispered, earnest 
words the story of my love, and surely the pretty, blushing, silent 
girl Avas not displeased. 

Spratling came at last, Avhile I was looking into ^Mamie's fathomless 
eyes and dreaming I kncAv not Avhat, and said to me : 

"Cajitain, it is time Ave Avere off. This place Avon't be safe for us 



FAGGOTS FROM THE CAMP FIRE. 23 

after daylight. These prisoners of mine are furious and most impa- 
tient. They have been plotting our destruction. One of them there, 
I am sure, loves madly that pretty black-eyed girl you have been 
dancing with. He would murder you now if he dared. Our presence 
here will be reported to Yankee scouts within an hour and we must 
be off. Escape even now is hardly possible." 

While the rest of Mamie's friends were clambering into the wagon 
she told me where her parents lived. I said- to her: 

"You must not forget me, Mamie. I will surely see you again. 
You will not forget me will you?" 

"Come and see me," she answered. " I will tell them at home how 
good, and brave, and true you are." 

She was in the act of clambering over the wagon wheel into the 
bod}-, where her friends were already seated, when I caught her arm 
and whispered, as I raised her into the vehicle, a reassertion of my 
deathless love. I detected a tremor passing over Mamie's frame. 
She turned to look, as I lifted my cap, into my sunburnt face. The 
wagon moved rapidly away. 

Kissing her hand she tossed the breath that passed her rosy lips, as 
if it had been a sparkling gem dissolved in morning mists, towards the 
s])ot where I stood entranced, motionless, and oblivious of everything 
except the wondrous charms of the departing divinity. 

I don't know how long I might have stared in the direction Mamie 
had gone if Spratling, the bravest and truest of men and scouts, had 
not said : 

"Captain, it is time, if you don't propose to follow that pretty girl, 
that we Avere getting out of this country. V.'itliin two hours a squad 
of cavalry will be here looking for us." 

Within ten minutes we resumed our march. Irat not in the direction 
of the towns I mentioned to Mamie's friends. On the contrary, we 
moved westwardly towards Walden's Ridge. We had not proceeded 
five miles Avhen we heard signal guns in many directions and the 
sound of horns used for like purposes by the native Unionists or bush- 
whackers. We ascended the ridge to its summit. Day was da\Miing 
when we looked down into the long, deep valle}- below. Signal fires 
still blazed at different points, and a rocket, making lights of different 
colors, climbed through the air far above the ridge and exploding 
fifteen or twenty miles away, recited the story told at headquarters of 
the Union army by Mamie's friends. It stated, " There are seven 
spies within our lines." In any event this was the translation we gave 
to this sign in the heavens, as significant of capture and death as was 
that of victory and empire which appeared to Constantine. 

Throughout the weary day, when we peered forth from our hiding 
place, we could discover bodies of horsemen moving in the valley 
below, in all directions, in search of the Confederates known to be within 
the Federal lines. Using a powerful field glass we defined during the day 
the route we were to pursue during the night that we might cross the 
valley in safety between Walden's Ridge and Cumberland Mountains. 



24 FAGGOTS FROM THE CAMP FIRE. 

We descended, with darkness, into the valley and moved rajjidly 
across it. A\'e reached the mountain's summit before day dawned. 
After this toilsome march, occupying the whole night, we were 
without food, fatigued beyond measure, hungry as famished wolves, 
and in the midst of relentless enemies. We had neither food, tobacco, 
nor coffee. 

Our condition was becoming desperate. At two o'clock in the 
afternoon we found in 'tbis sparsely populated district a modest little 
log farm-house. Stationing my men about it to prevent the escape of 
its inmates, I applied for food. The mistress of the cabin refused to 
sell anything. There was no help for it. We entered the cabin, and 
telling the good dame that we were starving and desperate and that 
she must gi\'e us bread or her home would be destroyed, she sullenly 
prepared dinner of the coarsest food. Two men, that we might not 
be poisoned, watched the ]M-ocess of cooking it, and we ate ravenously. 
The timid nominal head of the household begged his wife to give us 
all we demanded, and soon intimated privately that he was a devout 
"rebel." ^^'e knew he was lying, but accepted his assertions as if we 
deemed them true. We stated that we were of Morgan's cavalry, and 
en route to Kentucky to bring oift recruits, ^^'e made minute 
inquiries about roads leading north to McMinaville. He answered 
truthfully, as we happened to know. 

Late in the afternoon, when about to depart, we almost made a 
rebel of his red-haired, hideously ugly wife by presenting her five 
dollars in United States currenc}'. She grinned so gleefully when 
Spratling gave her the money, and drew so near to express her amazed 
gratitude, that Spratling, dreading a kiss from the ignorant, vulgar, 
frightful creature, leaped from the doorway. He told me he was 
never ''scared before in all his life." She was very thin and her 
back was bowed, as Spratling described her, like that of a "razor-back 
hog." Her frowzy, red hair, unkempt for twenty years, was powdered 
with ashes. She wore two garments. The outer, made of four yards 
of dingy gray calico, was tucked up at the waist, ex])osing her red, 
rusty, sinewy limbs almost to the knees. 

She was offended by Spratling' s sudden terror and retreat, and we 
knew that this Medusa of the mountains, if possible, would avenge 
the indignity. She began to denounce us. Her elocpience was 
absolutel}- wonderful. Daniel O'Connell's traditional fish woman 
could never have been more voluljle or coarse than this frightful 
hungry-looking, red-faced, red-headed, and red-mouthed angular 
creature. She leaped violently around the great barrel-churn in the 
yard and kicked at each of a dozen lazy, cowardly, yelping hounds 
that lay about the great receptacle of sour milk. She made and sold 
butter to Federal soldiers encamj^ed in the valley, and in neighboring 
villages. 

Spratling was noted for his tremendous strength. Like most 
physically powerful men, he was exceedingly good natured. But 
it was wholly impossible to withstand shocks to one's tem])er 



FAGGOTS FROM THE CAMP FIRE. 25 

administered by this voluble termagant. Spratling was first amazed, 
and when she finally stood facing him, her arms akimbo and legs 
extended as far apart as the contracted calico would admit, and 
poured forth a volley of disgusting epithets, vSpratling could no longer 
contain himself. 

He suddenly seized the .scrawn)-, bony creature, and inverting her, 
high in the air, as suddenly thrust her, head foremost into the barrel- 
churn half full of milk. The woman's stockingless legs were twirled 
about ])iteously above the top of the churn. I was paralyzed for a 
moment. The scene was painfully ludicrous. P'>ut the woman was 
drowning. Convulsive movements of her red legs showed that she 
was in a death struggle. Even the dozen dogs stood up and looked 
on in mute astonishment. To spare the woman's life I suddenly 
tip])ecl the churn over. Her clothing was rudely displaced and as the 
milk spread over the lower side of the little enclosure, and her head 
and shoulders were uncovered, she crawled out backwards. 

Evidently those dogs had never witnessed such an exhibition. As 
the good dame backed out of the barrel on all fours, the dogs stood 
transfixed with astonishment, staring a moment at the unusual spec- 
tacle, and then, howling piteously, eacli turned and fled in abject 
terror. Convulsed with laughter, I ordered my men to fall into line 
and march. vSpratling was holding his sides and rolling over and 
over on tlie ground. The mountain groaned beneath roars of laughter. 
It was horrible and cruel, but no incident half so ludicrous was 
e\-er witnessed by a squad of veterans. The good dame's senses were 
hardly restored when we began at last to move ra^jidly away. She 
finally rubbed the grease out of her eyes and began to comprehend 
the ridiculous aspect she had presented. She gathered up her con- 
sciousness, and pulled down her petticoat and began to gesticulate 
wildly, and pour forth an interminable vocabulary of coarse epithets. 
She pursued us to curse poor Si)ratling who ran down the declivity 
roaring like the bull of Bashan. 

We traveled rapidly perhaps five miles along the road we had been 
directed to take leading to McMinaville. The moon had not risen 
and total darkness enveloped us. Leaving the highway we entered 
the woods going directly back towards the scene of buttermilk baptism, 
W'c moved as silently as possible and had not reversed our course half 
an hour till we heard the red-headed woman's sharp, clear voice 
ringing out on the cold night air. She was urging a dozen bush- 
whackers to keep pace with her in pursuit of "infernal ]Mmps of hell 
and Jeff Davis." Her wild fury and shocking imprecations made us, 
rude soldiers as we were, shudder. The winds stood still that they 
might not bear on their wear}- wings the insufferable burden of her 
horrible oaths. AVe were even sickened by the woman's mad depravity 
and infernal fury. When the echoes of her harsh, sharp voice were 
no longer audible, I said to Spratling: "Hell hath no fur)' like a 
woman — baptised in buttermilk." Spratling's suppressed laughter 
shook the tree against which he rested his sturdy body, and we 



26 FAGGOTS FROM THE CAMP FIRE. 

resumed our toilsome journey over shapeless stones and through 
mountain thickets, never resting through that livelong, weary night. 
We marched by night and rested during daytime until we reached 
Stevenson near the Tennnessee River on the Nashville, Chattanooga 
and Memphis roads. 



CHAPTER III. 



A Narrow Escape. — A Veiy Cold Bath. — Gorgeous Scenery. — Colder Still. — A 
Newspaper Man Spins a Yarn. — A Little Retrospection. 

A devoted rebel family at Stevenson furnished supplies while we 
were encamped in a secluded spot near the village. V^c mixed 
occasionally with passengers on railway trains, from Memphis and 
from Nashville, meeting at this place. Spratling was a capital farmer, 
and I, a plow-boy. We wore the rude "butternut" or homespun 
goods of the country and only a pistol and knife, never visible. We 
received northern newspapers from every quarter and carefully filed 
away every paragraph that might be of value to Generals Bragg and 
Johnston. Wounded and sick soldiers, in endless trains, now and 
then moved northwardly, and interminable supply trains, day and 
night, went south. We noted everything. From sick-leave officers 
awaiting transportation, and from quartermasters' and commissaries' 
agents we learned how many they fed or transported in many divisions 
and corps. We made contracts to supply an Ohio brigade with eggs 
and potatoes which were never executed, perhaps because "bread and 
butter" brigades, and divisions, and corps, alone, came then, as now, 
out of Ohio. 

Early on the morning of December 30, 1863, the good dame who 
had furnished our simple meals came to our resting place to say that 
a little child of a bushwhacking neighbor had said that the rebel camp 
on the mountain-side would be attacked that night and its occupants 
shot or hanged. I proffered the woman fifty dollars in greenbacks. 
She refused to accept it; but when I said, "You are poor, and I am 
])aid by the government and given this money that I may give it to 
such as you," she said, " I did not know how I could live when you 
went away, yet I came to urge your immediate departure. With this 
fifty dollars and what I have saved I can feed and clothe myself and 
children almost a year." She kissed my hard, sunburnt hand, and 



28 FAGCzOTS FROM THE CAMP FIRE. 

with tearful eyes turned away. 1 never saw her afterward, but no 
bra\-er or truer woman lives than Mrs. M }', of Stevenson. 

How bitterly cold were the last days of December, 1S63, and the 
first of January. 1S64, survi\ing soldiers serving under Rosecranz, and 
Sherman, and Johnston, and Bragg will never forget. Early in the 
morning of the 30th of Deceml^er we strapped our blankets on 
our backs and with three daj-s' rations traversed the distance 
between Stevenson and Bridgeijort. We reached the ri\-er just after 
nightfall. Fiercely cold as were winds and waves there was no help 
for it. Wc must cross. There was no security save in placing the 
river between ourselves and the relentless bushwhackers. We could 
find no boat, and the swollen river, divided in its midst by a long, 
narrow island, was then, i)erhaps, two miles wide. It seemed, when 
we looked out, wistfully and anxiously enough, that bitterly cold 
night, upon its moaning, starlit waters, certainly ten miles in width. 

Of a wrecked boat on the shore we constructed a raft capable of 
conveying our blankets, clothing and weapons. We svram beside it 
down the ri\-er to the island. Almost t'rozen when we reached tlie 
sandy bank, we lifted the raft out of tlie water, bore it across the 
island, launched it again, and again drifting down and across the river, 
landed safely, but paralyzed by cold, on the southern bank. Icicles 
clung to my hair and beard. My teeth chattered and I felt that 
numbness and drowsiness slowl)- o\-ercoming me which immediately 
precedes death. We rubbed, one another violently with blankets a.nd 
when thoroughl}- dry and re-clad in woollen I ne\'er enjoyed so keenly 
the sense of perfect youthful vigor and vitality. I was aglow with 
ecstatic physical blessedness. We soon ascended and followed the 
ridge that connects Bridgeport with Lookout Mountain. A\'e stood 
upon the summit of the precipice that overhangs the railway and the 
Tennessee. The railwa}- track rests upon the \-erge of the stream and 
enormous, rugged stones superimposed on one another like those 
of some mediceval ruin rise precipitously hundreds of feet, and are 
])rojected beyond the railway and overhang the water's edge. At 
day-dawn we looked down from this dizzy height. A railway train 
going to Chattanooga came roaring and shrieking from Bridgeport. 
It seemed as we contemplated it, moving with tremendous velocity 
constantly accelerated into the river. We shuddered involuntarily" 
when it went down out of sight under the cliff, and seemingly 
headlong into the broad, boisterous bosom of the Tennessee. Then 
ensued the silence of death. Oreat, projecting stones cut off sounds 
and vision, and the sudden stillness that jjervaded mountains, valleys, 
and river was painful to the last degree. 

With a wild shriek of seemingly ineffable delight the locomotive, 
its great, black pennon of smoke curved backward, rushed from 
cavernous depths below to greet from the hill-top it ascended, the 
sjjlendors of the sun just rising on the brightest and coldest morning 
tliat ever dawned upon the South. 

In re-writing these memoranda I omitted a page to which I now 



FAGGOTS FROM THE CAMP FIRE. 29 

recur. While we were at the railway bridge which Federal soldiers 
were rebiiilciing across the Hiwassee River at Charleston we encountered 
a gentleman who had been now and then in the Confederate States' 
service as a staff officer, but for several preceding months editing a 
paper at Knoxville. He was well known to us and and at his own 
suggestion became, temporarily, one of our number. He withstood 
hardships uncomplainingly and whiled away tedious hours of compulsory 
idleness with stories he had gathered while war raged. His purpose 
was to reach Atlanta, whither his newspaper, when Burnside, with 
snowy locks, and side whiskers, and smooth towering occiput came 
down upon Knoxville, had been removed. On the night of December 
31, 1863, colder if possible than the preceding night, we climbed 
the summit of Lookout Mountain. If the one hundred and fifty 
thousand soldiers then within fifty miles of Chattanooga were reading 
at the same instant, the above sentence, they would each whistle and 
shudder, and perhaps one hundred thousand would exclaim, una voce, 
clapping their sinewy hands, "It was — — cold ! " It's a pity, but old 
soldiers will use frightful exclamations. But none have forgotten the 
terrors of the night which witnessed the death of 1S63 and the birth 
of 1864. Seven of us, with a blanket each, not daring to build a fire and 
hungry as f^imished wolves, spent that fearful night on the topmost 
summit of Lookout Mountain whereon some ancient fable tells that 
Hooker fought a battle even among the clouds. 

In the starlight, while looking for a place protected against Northern 
blasts, a shallow cavern was discovered. We gathered dry leaves and 
made a resting place within. And yet such was the insufferable cold 
that we could not .sleep. We smoked our pipes and "spun yarns" 
through the tedious hours of the weary night. 

"Gentlemen," said Bowles, one of our number, "I have seen and 
shared in several battles, and a big battle is only a rapidly alternating 

succession of d d big scares ; but I ne\'er witnessed such an 

infernally big scare as the red-headed milk-maid of the mountains 
inflicted on them d d dogs." 

Then followed such shouts of laughter that I absolutely feared the 
echoing peals would be liorne by cold blustering winds down into 
Federal headquarters just below in Chattanooga. 

" If the dogs have got back," said Spratling, " and I'm going there 
to see about it, I'll bet ten to one that every time she stoops, 'she 

stoops to conquer' and them cl d dogs go flying and howling down 

the deep jungles of Sequatchie Valley." 

" lean never forget the scene." interposed Blake. "When she stood 
on her head in the churn, her little, starveling legs dancing an 
inverted hornpipe, the picture was sublime in its very uniqueness. 
But when the captain here overturned the churn and the dogs all 
stood up and looked on with growing interest, licking their chops 
and crying over much spilled milk, and then, when their attention 
was gradually arrested by the old woman backing out of that churn 
wholly uncovered and on all fours, it was entirely too much for the 



3° 



FAGGOTS FROM THE CAMP FIRE. 



dogs. It was more than I could stand. I turned away only to see 
and hear the dogs frightened, shrieking, and flying in all directions." 
"Do you know," continued Blake, "that the woman's husband 
was delighted? He sneaked off. I saw him behind the chicken 
house, throwing himself back and forth like a cross-cut saw, and 
holding his sides with both hands, his cheeks swollen and his eyes 
bursting from their sockets. It was keen enjoyment of fun struggling 
against the terror in which he held his red-headed, dreadful wife. We 
made a good rebel of him. Don't you remember that we heard not 
a word from him when the wife led our pursuers so noisily and 
vengefully on our track. We have won him, and if ever I go on 
another expedition in that direction I would not hesitate to trust that 
man. His gratitude to us is boundless, and his devotion will be 
admirable." 



CHAPTER IV. 



The Newspaper Man Tells of His Escape from Burnside. — Compulsory Sermon- 
izing. — "Tristram Shandy." — A Solemn and Terrible Indictment. — The Good 
that Came of It. — Descent of the Mountain. — Hunger and Roast Hog. — Plans 
for the Future. 

There was silence and an una\-ailing purpose to sleep when the 
newspai)er man said that he had told us how he escaped from 
Knoxville, going out on one side of the then little city when General 
Burnside entered on the other. 

"It was impossible to go directly south. The railway leading to 
Chattanooga was held at every bridge and station by Federal pickets. 
Therefore I went towards Nashville. I spent a day at Kingston, 
an ancient town of twenty-five hundred inhabitants on Clinch River 
at the base of the Cumberland Mountains. Thence I journeyed 
slowly southeast, pretending to he a Kentuckian on my way to 
Chattanooga where my brother was dying in the hospital. 

" I had, as a Whig and Unionist, traversed this district, and now from 
the home of one friend I was directed to another. I traveled at 
night, and was accompanied, on horseback or in a farm wagon, b)" 
the political and partisan friend with whom I had spent the preceding 
night. I was educated, before I entered the university and afterward 
the law-school, at a theological college, and learned how to prepare 
very acceptable sermons, perhaps for the reason that I could memorize 
readily and recite ore rotundo what I had written, ^^'hen I first 
encotmtered you, and when Blake recognized me, I had been forced, 
most unwillingly, to enact the role of chaplain and missionary sent 
down from Cincinnati by the Young Men's Christian Association. Of 
course I sought the acquaintance of the best people of the place, and 
was at last forced to deliver, much against my will, two sermons while 
traversing the country from Kingston to the Hiwassee at Charleston. 
The last was pronounced, the day before Ave met, with infinite zeal 



32 FAGGOTS FROM THE CAMP FIRE. 

and fervor. In my audience were many grim, but devout, Union 
soldiers. On this occasion I delivered the sermon which you read in 
Tristram Shandy. Of course I had amended, modernized, and localized 
it. Those most familiar with Sterne would hardly have recognized the 
pretty homily. I used this charming ciiscourse because I had mastered 
it perfectly and was sure I would go through with the day's work 
never incurring a suspicion or exciting a doubt as to genuineness of 
the character I assumed. If I had not played Beecher, on the rostrum, 
to pert'ection, I would have performed as a spy under the gallows 
most awkwardly. But I was no spy. I only sought to escape into 
the Gulf States and was overjoyed when I recognized my learned 
friend Blake here in the rude garb of an East Tennessee clodhopper 
at Charleston. 

"So much by way of prelude to a recital of incidents of the previous 
Sunday. There was a Methodist confe'-ence in session in the village 
of Kingston. I had just reached the place, and, Sunday morning as 
it was, found idlers about the tavern eyeing me suspiciously. \Vhen 
any two persons saw me approaching they parted at once and each 
went his way. The somewhat aged landlord was studiously polite and 
reserved. Seeing many people coming into the village I learned that 
the Methodist conference of the district was to sit and resolved, rather 
than be captured by these bushwhackers and shot or sent a prisoner 
of war beyond the Ohio, to become a Northern missionary. I took a 
conspicuous seat in the church soon filled to overflowing. 

"Near me sat a bright-eyed, slender, sallow little preacher. He wore 
a threadbare broadcloth coat of the Methodist regulation pattern. 
There were constant nervous twftchings of the corners of his mouth 
and laughing devils in his merry eyes. His name, as I learned after- 
ward, was Weaver, a famous practical joker as well as eloquent 
evangelist. A song was sung. The venerable Bishop of the district 
occupied a raised seat in front of the- pulpit and bending in the 
presence of God uttered a fervent prayer for peace and for the 
'restoration of harmony and good government.' Though there was 
nothing in the prayer pronounced by the devout old man to offend a 
'rebel,' he was evidently loyal to the 'Stars and Stripes' as were 
nine-tenths of his hearers. 

" Silence, when the Bishop resumed his seat, pervaded the assembly. 
At length a youthful, graceful preacher addressed as 'Brother Wil- 
liams,' evidently much excited, and pale and tremulous, rose in the 
midst of the congregation, and, hesitating and stammering, said: 

" 'Brethren, Brother Jones and I came to town early this morning 
with Brother Weaver.' 

"I turned and looked at Weaver. There were a thousand merry 
devils lurking in his bright, mischievous eyer. The corners of his 
mouth were drawn down and lips suddenly compressed. Seeing that 
the eyes of the assembly were turned upon him, he modestly bowed 
his head and sat in moody silence and perfect stillness gazing at his feet. 

"Brother Williams proceeded : 



FAGOTS FROM THE CAMP FIRE. 33 

'' 'While we were crossing tlie main street of the town awhile ago, 
brother Weaver, looking up at the windows of the hotel, remarked, in 
very sad, solemn tones, to Brother Jones and myself, that the last 
time that he slept in that hotel the landlord's wife occupied his 
apartment. Of course I was startled, not to say shocked. Brother 
Jones, too, was much excited, and both of us listened intently to 
Brother Weaver's reply when I asked him if it were possible that I 
heard aright. He answered, "Yes, my brethren, it is my duty to tell 
the truth and whatever you may think, and whatever the consequences, 
I must repeat that what I have stated is true. The last time I occupied 
an apartment in that hotel the landlord's youthful wife was my com- 
panion." 

" 'Brother Weaver's fai!e, while this speech was uttered by him, was 
expressive of profoundest melancholy.' 

" 'And I am persuaded,' continued Brother Williams, 'that he was 
moved to make this painful confession because the face of the Lord 
was never more patent in His goodness and heavenly benefactions than 
when it shone upon us this morning in the gorgeous sunlight that 
suddenly flooded plains, hills, and mountains. It rolled and fell like 
a brilliant Niagara of jewels and gold from the summit of the 
mountains yonder into this deep, beautiful valley. Clinch River, my 
. brethren, shone lustrously as burnished silver, and the very splendors 
of the morning and pearly brightness and purity of skies overhanging 
this matchless land of beauty and blessedness were eloquent of God's 
goodness and suggestive of man's penitence. Brother Weaver, I am 
sure, could not withstand the force of nature's persuasive eloquence; 
and coming, as he was, to God's temple, he \\'as moved to make this 
painful confession of his heinous crime. 

" 'I appeal to Brother Jones, who accompanied us, to attest the 
truthfulness of my statements.' 

"Williams sat down and Jones, an illiterate circuit-rider, rising, 
slowly and timorously said : 

" ' Brethren, all that yon have hearn is only too true,' and his eyes 
filling witl^ tears, he used his handkerchief, and hesitating, stammering 
and weeping, was at last enabled to drawl out in broken accents, 'I 
hope, my brethering you will deal leaniently with Brother Weaver. 
The flesh you know is weak and Brother Weaver has repented. I 
know he has because he has confessed.' 

"A torrent of tears swept down Jones' rugged features and with an 
audible groan he dropped, like a dead man, on his seat, utterly 
crushed by the weight of this unspeakable sorrow. 

"Profoundest silence reigned, broken by sobs and groans of 
miserable and sympathetic Brother Jones. No assembly, christian or 
heathen, was ever more profoundly shocked. Women of the con- 
gregation, nervously excited, grew pale and haggard. The face of 
the Bishop's venerated wife was of ashen hue. Weaver was the flower 
of the flock of young preachers. 

"At last the Bishop rose and said: 

3 



34 FAGOTS FROM THE CAMP FIRE. 

'' 'Brethren, you have heard, with horror and dismay, statements 
made by our two young brethren. I see Brother Weaver there, his 
head bowed .beneath the weight of shame and penitence. Will he 
not speak? Has he nothing to say? ' 

"The Bishop resumed his chair. 

"Slowly, most deliberately, and with an irrepressible twinkle in his 
clear, bright eyes, Brother Weaver, drawing himself up by the back 
of the seat before him, rose to confront the eager gaze of the excited 
assembly. He stood some moments looking sorrowfully over the 
throng gazing intently into his attractive, but saddened, solemn face. 

" ' Brethren,' he said at last, 'I did make the confession which my 
friends heard and have accurately repeated ; but it so happens that 
when I occupied the room mentioned, with the landlord's wife, as 
stated, I was the landlord, and the woman was my wife. ' 

" I'he true state of the case was slowly comprehended by the duped 
and stupefied multitude. The Bishop and his wife were first to 
discover the immaculate Innocence of the two circuit-riders, Williams 
and Jones, and a broad smile spread over the kindly face of the godly 
man. His fat wife began to laugh immoderately. The infection 
spread, and when it had grown into a great roar the lantern-jawed, 
solemn, weeping Jones sprang up in evident disgust and exclaimed: 

" 'Sold ! awfully sold ! Weren't we. Brother Williams? ' 

"This outburst of the mortified Jones, who had wasted bitter tears 
and sweetest sympathy upon Weaver, perfected the sudden revulsion 
from profound sadness and solemnity to an apprehension of the 
absurdity of the facts and their utter incompatibility with the serious- 
ness of the place, day, atid occasion. The Bishop's fat wife crammed 
her handkerchief into her mouth and the Bishop himself, contemplating 
the vacant look of empty astonishment that overspread Jones' heavy 
face, who seemed to ask himself, ' How could I have been such an 
arrant fool?' was wholly overcome. He caught a glance from the 
tearful eyes of his agonized wife and could contain himself no longer. 
He threw his head backward, clapped his hands to his sides, and 
roared with laughter. I never saw a religious assembly, on the Lord's 
day, in such a deplorable, unseemly condition. 

"The incident served to divert attention from myself. I mixed 
and talked and laughed with busy, garrulous men and women, and 
each seemed to think the rest had known me always. The Bishop, 
first mildly chiding Brother AVeaver for the innocent fraud practised 
upon two zealous circuit- riders, pronounced a sermon of singular 
simplicity and marvellous incisiveness and force. The minds of his 
auditors were diverted wholly from sinful rebels, and when I returned 
in the afternoon to the hotel, having passed under the inspection of 
the multitude, the venerable landlord greeted me most graciously and 
called forth the good-looking wife that I might see, as he stated the 
proposition, 'how naterally even a preacher might go wrong in his 
hotel.' " 

Artillery and cavalry bugles and drums at a thousand glowing camp 



FAG(3TS FROM THE CAMP FIRE. 35 

fires blazing along the curves of Moccasin Bend and on the slopes of 
mountain sides and down the deep valley of the Tennessee, were 
sounding the reveille when the modest journalist concluded his recital. 
When, some weeks later, it was written out, I had not learned how to 
insert the words ['•' laughter, "j and ['-'great applause"] in brackets, as 
since introduced by party leaders; otherwise these pages would show 
how keenly the story, here imperfectly reproduced, was enjoyed by 
cold, comfortless, and hungry scouts ensconced in a little cavern on 
the summit of Lookout Mountain, on the ever memorable night of 
December 31, 1863, the first anniversary of the battle of Stone River. 

The mountain was veneereci with sheets of ice. We knew that few 
were abroad on such a morning, that sentinels and pickets stood near 
camp fires, and that scouting parties of the enemy sought shelter 
within cabins of bushwhackers. Avoiding paths and roadways and 
cabins we began to slide, rather than walk, clown the mountain. In 
a few hours we reached McLemore's Cove and thence, painfully 
fatigued by sliding over the frozen ground sheeted in ice, we plodded 
wearily along the ridge, known, I believe, as Taylor's. Night was 
coming on. We had eaten nothing for twenty-four hours. Made 
reckless by suffering, one of our number shot a hog. It was hastily 
skinned, washed, sliced and roasted to a crisp, in thin strips, 
by a roaring fire made to glow with the farmer's rails whose sustenance 
we devoured. Without bread or salt, we ate ravenously. I have 
since dined at the Fifth Avenue, at Morley's, the best cafes of Paris, 
Berlin, and Vienna, but never derived such exquisite pleasure from 
food as when we half-frozen soldiers sat about the blazing rails, and 
ate unsalted pork on the heights that look down upon Chattanooga. 

Two days later, moving at night, and concealed and resting in 
densest thickets during daytime, we rested at Tunnel Hill, where 
General Pat Cleburne was encamped. He congratulated us in most 
flattering terms on successes achieved, was pleased with the fullness and 
accuracy of information given as to the numbers, purposes, and 
positions of the enemy, and made me accompany him to General 
Granbury's quarters. Here we spent most of the night while I recited, 
as given in these pages, the story of our adventures. I gave, besides, 
minute descriptions of the country and relative positions of the forces of 
the enemy and the strength of each position defined in pencil sketches 
I had made. That night it was determined by these two Confederate 
leaders that a permanent body of scouts should be kept constantly 
employed between the lines of the two armies. I was commended by 
these officers to General Joseph E. Johnston and soon afterward given 
charge of a body of scouts and entered upon the execution of hazardous 
tasks incident to the position. I am glad to state that I never forfeited 
the personal esteem and unlimited confidence of either of these three 
great leaders; and that I, a boy not quite eighteen years of age, won 
and retained under such an ordeal, the unfaltering friendship and 
confidence of these accomplished gentlemen and soldiers, is the most 
pleasing reflection incident to my conduct in life. 



CHAPTER V. 



Patrolling the "Neuti-al Ground." — "Mountain Dew." — A Ghastly Spectacle. — The 
Tree of Death. — Bushwhackers and Great Fright. — Successful Expedition. — 
Cowardice Punished. — Mamie Hughes. — Day Dreams. — Southern Men and 
Women as affected by the War. — Negro Slaves and Southern Women. — 
Southern Planters. — Mamie's Home and Negro Slavery. 

After a few days rest, I was given charge of thirteen men and 
assigned the task of arresting deserters and bushwhackers. We estab- 
lished a rendezvous about midway between the two armies and between 
Ringgold and La Fayette in Georgia. One man was made cook 
and commissary, remaining always at our place of encampment, while 
twelve men were constantly on duty. Six went out each morning, 
three going east and three going west. When these came back, the 
other six in turn explored the "neutral ground." Seven men were 
always ready to defend our stronghold, and the country about us was 
perfectly patrolled. Within a week we captured and sent back eight 
deserters to be tried and shot. Returning to camp late one afternoon 
I was startled by a rapid fusillade in its direction. I was sure the 
bushwhackers had attacked my little garrison and hurried to its relief. 
Of course, anticipating an ambuscade, we moved, when within a mile 
of the scene of conflict, very cautiously. But the firing was suddenly 
silenced. We feared the worst — even that we would find our comrades 
dead on the unnamed, unknown field of conflict, or hanging to 
great trees hard-by. Just then there was an explosion as of a six- 
pounder field-piece. Then the g.irrison shouted as if a great victory 
were won and an enemy put to flight. We moved forward cautiously, 
full of gravest apprehensions. 

There was a prisoner held in our camp, the meanest villain, and 
murderer, and coward that ever slunk away from an open fight to do 
assassin's work at night or by the roadside. It was my purpose to 
send him that night, to be court-martialed and shot, to General 



FAGOTS FROM THE CAMP FIRE. 37 

Cleburne's head-quarters. He had recently waylaid and murdered, as 
my men knew, two of the bravest soldiers. 

By some means, in my absence, the little garrison had been 
supplied with "mountain dew," that intoxicating beverage which, 
while war ravaged the South, came trickling down, drop by drop, from 
green logs upon sheds of poverty in deep glens, first to madden, and 
then to lull jaded inmates to repose. While the scouts were half 
drunken, this wretched murderer and deserter had attempted to 
escape. He had been fired upon, and swooning unharmed, in pitiful 
terror, was brought back to our resting place. His meanness and 
cowardice exasperated the drunken soldiers. One of them climbed a 
slender hickory tree, forty or fifty feet high, strong, tough, and 
elastic as whalebone. The weight of the soldier's body barely bent 
the top of the tree to the ground. 

At the moment I came in view of the spot, the bushwhacker, 
attached by a cord about his neck to the tree-top, shot upward through 
the air. His head was jerked away from his light, sinewy, little body. 
The neck seemed, as the little villain sped upward and away through 
the air, quite a yard long. He was instantly killed, the dead body 
having been thrown by the slender, elastic tree more than one 
hundred feet from the point at which it left the earth, describing a 
semicircle above the tree-top. The hickory tree almost instantly 
re-assumed its erect position, and when I stood in the midst of the 
men, the dead body, almost motionless, swung down among the top- 
most branches of this extraordinary gallows. The men, drunken as 
they were when firing the fusillade of triumph and when they exploded 
an old musket barrel half full of powder and driven downward in the 
ground till only the touch-hole was exposed, stood sober and erect, 
and stared upward in horror at the dead body of the wretched bush- 
whacker dangling from the tree and swinging helplessly around its top. 

I asked no questions. None were needful. An ugly, brown jug 
was overturned on a blanket. Its open mouth, from which whiskey 
gurgled, in melancholy accents, recited every incident of the horrible 
crime. Its breath was noisome as its deeds are always disgusting and 
hideous. Drunken as were my guardsmen and incapable, I was 
forced, by every consideration of safety, to find at once another 
rendezvous. The explosion of the gun barrel invited spies and scouts 
and bushwhackers from all directions, and assured of their si)eedy 
arrival, our safety demanded instant flight. 

My whole force had been rapidly drawn together, and within 
twenty minutes we began to move. Time was too valuable to devote 
a half hour to the burial, of the ghastly corpse in the tree-top. We 
left it, a hideous spectacle, swaying restlessly to and fro as the winds 
moved the body of the slender tree. Birds of prey, in unbroken, 
tmtraveled forest solitudes, devoured it. There was no Rizpah to 
defend it. Its bones, when stripped of flesh, were restive as before, 
and still were dancing, when fierce, wintry winds bent the great forest 
oaks, a ghastly dance of solitude, around the body of the tree of death. 



38 FAGOTS FROM THE CAMP FIRE. 

We moved to a point near La Fayette, a village in Walker County, 
Georgia. There, one of my men learned from a country girl he often 
visited, that the bushwhackers of the district would meet, in order to 
effect an organization, the next Saturday night, at an old church in or 
near McLemore's Cove several miles away. The girl was informed 
that forty or fifty armed men would be present. We could only be 
assured of the damsel's truthfulness by going into McLemore's Cove. 
There was great hazard to be incurred. If assailed and overpowered 
there was only one way of escape, and our force was too weak to 
cope with that to be organized by the bushwhackers. We held a 
council of war, and after due deliberation, condemned the proposed 
expedition. Five of us persisting in the purpose to capture the bush- 
whackers, finally arranged it that we would secure the co-operation of a 
cavalry force at the nearest Confederate outpost, and make a vigorous 
descent upon the country church. Fortune favored us. We had not 
gone five miles in the direction of the proposed rendezvous before we 
discovered a solitary horseman, who proved to be the very man we 
wanted. He came upon us so suddenly, in an abrupt curve of the 
densely wooded roadside, that he had no opportunity to escape. 
Covered instantly by five muskets, he dismounted and surrendered 
without a murmur. We agreed with the prisoner, who was quite fifty 
years old, such was our eagerness to obtain information, if we found 
his statements truthful, and if he would give us information we wanted 
and no more wage war against the South, that we would release 
him. He assented, and confirmed the story told by Ralph's sweet- 
heart. We found all his assertions correct, and the bargain then made 
was afterwards faithfully executed. Two men, with this prisoner, 
were sent to the nearest cavalry encampment. Fifty men were placed 
at my disposal ; the church, while the bushwhackers occupied it, was 
completely invested ; and its occupants, about fifty in number, were 
captured without firing a gun. They never dreamed of the possible 
presence, in that remote, inaccessible cove, of a strong body of Con- 
federate cavalry. 

Of course, we who participated in the hard march and toils and 
dangers of this expedition into McLemore's Cove* were not a little 
irritated when, returning to camp, we found that our comrades had 
done nothing in our absence. They had participated in many country 
dances. They were telling of the beauty of many maidens, occupants 
of many cottages and cabins everywhere within ten miles of the 
village. They had forgotten our existence and inquired most- care- 
lessly about the result of the fortunate expedition. We were 
grievously offended, and proposed, at the earliest opportunity, to 
punish their timidity and selfishness. 

A country dance was organized and appointed for that very evening. 
We five who had shared in the expedition into McLemore's Cove 
made no sign, but went quietly to the ball. We danced as vigorously 
and joyously as the rest till perhajjs eleven o'clock. Then, as pre- 
arranged, three of the five mentioned went unnoticed to a point near 



FAGOTS FROM THE CAMP FIRE. 



39 



the court-house, half a mile distant, and fired a volley of muskets and 
pistols. Instantly the music was silenced and dancing suspended. 
Each soldier hurriedly armed himself. No further demonstration of 
enemies or friends occurring, two of my recusant scouts, blustering 
monstrously and asserting much fearlessness, said they would go out 
and discover the cause of the alarm. Accompanied by a fun-loving 
Irishman, I followed, pursuing a street parallel with that taken by 
these mock heroes. They went not farther than two hundred yards, 
and stopped beneath the dense shadow of a great cedar tree. ^V'e fired 
our muskets into the tree-top above their heads. Each thought the 
other mortally wounded. Both cried out, "They are coming! They 
are coming! " and fled precipitately. We fired our pistols to acceler- 
ate their flight, and heighten the terror of their dismayed comrades. 
They rushed into the hall among frightened women and unnerved 
men, unnerved because dangers environing them were unseen and 
inimeasured. Rapidly girls and beaux of the immediate vicinity ran 
away to their homes, and there was such a stampede, as " when Bel- 
gium's capital had gathered in her beauty and her chivalry." 

My object was accomplished. The men who had refused to go 
with us into McLemore's Cove were wofuUy frightened. This Capua 
in Lombardy which had wrought such fatal paralysis of the soldierly 
virtues and energies of my scouts, was divested of attractiveness, and 
next morning, rising before the sun, my men were ready for the 
execution of any task of toil or feat of daring. I explained the 
incidents of the night before and stated that soldiers were made 
worthless by whiskey, dancing, and women, and that, if reform were 
impossible, I would send them back to the ditches and have others, in 
their stead, detailed for this free and exciting service. 

I should not forget to state that the honest bushwhacker we cap- 
tured won my confidence to such an extent that I told him how 
completely my heart had been entrapped by the charms and wiles and 
graces of pretty, confiding, frank, and fearless Mamie Hughes. To 
him I entrusted my first letter to Mamie. I retained no copy, but 
remember that I suggested that she should take advantage of the 
bushwhacker's thorough knowledge of the country and of his trust- 
worthiness, and accompany him to her own home below Dalton. I 
confessed to the bushwhacker how thoroughly I was devoted to the 
charming girl, and promised, if he would conduct her safely to her 
own home below our lines, I would do him any personal service he 
might require. I am not sure that my judgment approved the 
arrangement I made for a meeting with Mamie. If I had loved her 
less, I would never have proposed her subjection to the dangers and 
fatigues of such a journey even with such a guardsman. But I had 
never ceased to think and dream of Mamie's great, lustrous, black 
eyes and of that limitless confidence I read in them when she looked 
upon my face and held my hand by the moonlit roadside where the 
compulsory dance occurred on the cold, bleak hillside not far below 
the village of Charleston. Every day some soldier, noticing my 



40 FAGOTS FROM THE CAMP FIRE. 

abstracted manner, said that Mamie Hughes had wrought a marvelous 
transformation of my conduct and character. When relieved of duties 
and anxieties incident to my position and to dangers almost always 
environing us, I stood aloof from my men, no longer participating in 
their rude sports or occupying a place at some improvised card-table. 
I was dreaming of Mamie Hughes, and sought solitude, that undis- 
turbed, fancy might reproduce her matchless charms. She had 
promised never to forget and meet me at her home. From the day 
on which I transmitted the letter telling her to come, that I must see 
her again, that I loved her passionately, that I had never been able to 
dismiss the splendid vision wrought by her presence or repress aspira- 
tions excited by the hope that she would love me — from that day I 
had been a changed man. I was conscious that I had entered upon a 
new life. I had found one to share it who had already become an 
inseparable part of my existence. 

Wedded life, if marriage be unity, begins before we go to the altar 
and before the priest utters his meaningless jargon. This is only a cere- 
mony ; the fact is accomplished and real wedded oneness begins 
beneath the moon and stars, as when, on the roadside, Mamie and I 
met and parted so suddenly that her face and form constituted an 
imperfect memory, while their effect upon my conduct and emotions 
wrought such a change in my character and habits that ray associates 
knew that we "twain were one flesh." They had seen how I was 
dazed by the wonderful fascinations of the little sprite that sprang, 
a brilliant, startling vision from dreamland, in the midst of the 
mountains of East Tennessee. 

From many sources I had learned the history of Mamie's family. 
Her brother was a Union soldier serving under Colonel Cliff. Her 
father, a life-long Whig, was a devout loyalist or Union man, while 
she and her mother were enthusiastic rebels. It is a strange fact, 
soon discovered in traversing these mountainous districts of several 
coterminous States, that while men were commonly "loyal," women, 
more impulsive and sympathetic, and apt to serve the weak against 
the strong, were ardent "rebels." Political and partisan considera- 
tions involved were never valued by Mamie Hughes. She was born 
rich and a slaveholder, but never dreamed of the pending conflict as 
a struggle to maintain or extirpate slavery. She was not of those who 
went to war because the Union would not suffer southern masters to 
convey negros in the abstract to an impossible place — Kansas. She 
would not have given one drop of the blood of those dear to her for the 
freedom or slavery of all Africans in the South. Fighting was 
begun, and womanly sympathy impelled Mamie to espouse the cause 
of the weak and of those she knew and loved. Her father, recog- 
nizing, as the daughter and wife did not, ties of partisanship, and 
listening, as was his wont, to the sturdy, practical, simple eloquence 
of Andrew Johnson and reading the National Intelligencer, a Whig 
and conservative newspaper that once entered the home of almost 
every slaveholder, was an unfaltering, earnest Unionist. 



FAGOTS FROM THE CAMP FIRE. 41 

I had observed differences between northern and southern women 
produced by the institution of slavery. If the northern dame were 
self-reliant, she was also cold, selfish and practical. If southern 
women were physically helpless, and unused to toil, and knew not 
how to serve themselves, they were also wholly ignorant of the 
depravity, as well as selfishness, of men. The hybrid race stood 
between the maiden of wealth and social vices of which she never 
dreamed. Chivalry honored and respected virtue because there 
was no necessity, as society was arranged, for assaults upon its 
strongholds. But beyond this, the co-existence of two races, the one 
enslaved and by no means faultless, imbued free-born damsels with a 
degree of self-respect, and pride of person and race which repelled 
every approach of degradation and dishonor. Selfish interest con- 
curred with and heightened and ennobled the tenderest sensibilities and 
truest svmpathies of southern women. It was their province to 
minister to the sick, to clothe the naked, and feed the hungry. Their 
reward was two-fold : in dollars that glittered in greasy, healthful, 
shining African faces, and in that higher, holier pleasure derived from 
the consciousness of doing good, in ministering to the delights of 
others, and relieving woes of the helpless, dependent and unfortunate. 
Slavery, therefore, produced the noblest women possible, and I loved 
Mamie Hughes none the less that she was an hereditary slave-owner. 
Infinite and numberless as were evils incident to the "peculiar 
institution," it begat a class of men and women, and a state of society, 
in many of its aspects, as admirable and delightful as that is degraded 
and brutal in numerous localities has supplanted African servitude 
and white mastery. Planters were petty kings, wielding powers almost 
of life and death. The master's slightest nod was the iron law of the 
realm. None of God's creatures are so good and great that they 
are worthy of such autocratic power, and few so ignorant and 
depraved that they should be subjected to this despotic authority ; the 
right of masters was no more divine than is that of kings. Mamie's 
father, like my own, reigned unrestrained despot over five hundred 
human beings, and such a father hardly tolerated the unconquerable 
fidelity of the mother and daughter to the "treasonable Confed- 
eracy." That both might entertain changed or modified opinions, 
they were separated, and Mamie was sent into East Tennessee to spend 
a few months with her "loyal" cousins. There I had met her, as 
already stated, and there I was hopelessly enchained, a helpless victim 
of the simple wiles and native charms of pretty Mamie Hughes. 

Belbre the deluge of woes, war, poverty, vice, and crime swept over 
and annihilated it, the hospitality of the "Old South" was traditional 
as it was matchless. In fact, monumental virtues, as well as vices, 
were sturdy outgrowths of negro servitude. These were expanded and 
flourished, until (in its social aspects, as seen from without and as 
presented in the every-day life of southern households) strangers 
deemed it paradisical. The characters of the planter and of members 
of his family were shaped by peculiar influences wrought by peculiar 



42 FAGOTS FROM THE CAMP FIRE. 

relations of master and slave, and by consequent peculiar modes of 
life. He trafficked and traded with nobody. He only gave. His 
cotton or sugar or rice factor, in the nearest commercial mart, sold 
his crops and bought his annual home, and plantation, and household 
supplies. His overseers commonly bought mules, and horses, and 
bacon, and the i)lanter only rode over his estates, and watched the 
growth of crops, and determined questions of right and wrong arising 
among "his people" on his broad estates. Humanity was profitable, 
and hospitality, where farms and gardens and orchards produced 
everything that hospitality consumed, cost nothing. Planters were 
even willing to pay for agreeable society. Therefore, their residences 
were hotels where no bills were presented. They had dogs, and 
horses, and guns, and wines, and dinners to attract those whose 
society they courted. Having no business or trade relations with 
their neighbors, they had no quarrels or law suits, and thus the loftiest 
and most admirable personal virtues were cultivated and exercised, 
and worthy men, as well as admirable and haughty women, sprang 
from the centuries of African servitude. 

Mamie Hughes was thoroughly imbued with the feelings, and 
instincts, and ineradicable pride of race that distinguised the best and 
truest and haughtiest of her sex. She had been blest, and injured in 
nothing, by influences exerted by negro subordination to the white 
race. Rich, never having known a want ungratified, she was self- 
willed and arrogant. Accustomed to the exaction of obedience, she 
expected limitless concessions to her demands. The time was coming 
when Mamie must adapt herself to conditions of life wholly subverted. 
She was anticipating it and schooling her proud spirit even then, that 
she might defy poverty and cheerfully accept its griefs. The tide of 
desolating war had already swept over the homes of her kindred in 
East Tennessee. There she had led the way in executing each 
arduous household task suddenly imposed by hard necessities of the 
period upon her aunts and cousins. She encountered every stroke of 
poverty with seeming indifference. She toiled steadily, intelligently, 
and skillfully, and such was her patient, smiling heroism, that 
misfortunes became sources of pleasure, because of the delight involved 
in retrieving them. 

And Mamie Hughes was a true representative of her class. The 
richest, and proudest, and noblest of the South when poverty came, 
were never heard to utter a lament. There were no Jeremiads 
in which were inserted tedious parenthetical descriptions of gorgeous 
splendors and fabulous wealth in the midst of which she had moved 
and reigned in unrestricted authority. Mamie, as subsequent pages 
may tell, was true to herself, to her class, and to the nobility of her 
race. She was fearless and confident, encountering calamities and 
triumphing over poverty with a determination and steadiness of 
purjjose that exacted every concession of gratitude and love which 
intelligence and truth always award to the loftiest heroism. 

Besides a sugar plantation in Louisiana, Mamie's father owned rice 



FAGOTS FROM THE CAMP FIRE. 43 

fields in South Carolina; but his preferred home was in the broad, 

rich valley, in County, Georgia, fifty-eight miles from 

Atlanta. Here Mamie's mother, and grandmother, and great grand- 
mother, were born, and here her fathers had tilled the soil, and 
gathered wealth, and owned countless slaves, through many gener- 
ations. Great old oaks, and walnut trees, and Lombardy poplars had 
been planted one hundred years before in long lines leading through 
the enclosed forest to the rambling, irregular cluster of apartments, 
passages, dining, dancing and music halls, and library, and bed- 
chambers that constituted the ancestral home of Mamie Hughes. 
How I happened to go thither, and what vicissitudes of fortune befell 
Mamie, her brother, and myself, will appear hereafter. 



CHAPTER VI, 



The Fascinating Deserter and Gay Widow. — An Accommodating Negro. — Th( 
Capture. — Unearthing a Deserter. — "Ef tliis 'ere Umbaril v.'ould shoot." — A 
Corruptible Juvenile. — A Woman who loved Whiskey, and how it moUifiec 
Her. 

We had been pursuing the usual routine of scouts' duties severa' 
days near La Fayette, capturing deserters and bushwhackers, and 
incurring at all times unseen and unmeasured dangers, when we 
learned, through a woman, of course, that a lieutenant of a Georgia 
regiment, Longstreet's Corps, who had escaped as a deserter from oui 
lines, was harbored by his cousin, so-called, a gay and charming youne 
widow of the town. We were eager to capture the young gentleman. 
Our fair informant, moved by jealousy, said that he had concealed 
himself in the forest while we were in La Fayette, but returned when 
we left the place. I went about the streets everywhere stating that we 
would move south, into our own lines, the next day. With my whole 
fSrce, and with baggage packed and rations prepared for a long march, 
we moved out of the place. Five miles away we entered a thicket, 
remaining there till midnight. Then, with four men I retraced mj 
steps and reached the widow's house in the suburbs about one o'clock. 
In the darkness I stationed my men about the house, supposing that the 
gay Lothario, hearing of our departure, would return before day-dawn 
to his accustomed and most comfortable quarters. We were onl) 
mistaken in the date of events. We rested, watching intently, but in 
vain, for the Lieutenant's approach, till streaks of gray light danced 
and flashed and disappeared, and then marked the verge of the 
eastern sky. Then it occurred to me that our intended prize might 
have entered the house almost as soon as we left the place. 

Just then a drowsy negro appeared. He came out of his cabir 
hard-by, slowly yawning, and stretching himself, and rubbing his 
eyes, to the wood pile behind which I was seated. He was muttering 



FAGOTS FROM THE CAMP FIRE. 45 

to himself and cursing the cold weather and " Massa Jones" who had 
ordered him to kindle fires in the "white folks' house." Silently, 
and unseen, in the gray mists of early dawn, I leveled my musket. 
The sleepy negro's nose struck the cold barrel. 

"Golly!- What's dat?" he exclaimed, starting back, and throwing 
up his hands. 

"Be silent, you black rascal, or I'll blow away the top of your 
head," was my low response. 

Cuffee was now wide awake. His greasy eyes glistened in the pale, 
thin fog. I said to him that if he obeyed me he should not be 
harmed. To steady his nerves and confidence I gave him a silver 
half dollar. He had not seen one since i860. He grinned when 
rubbing and looking at it, and then an awfully black pall of gloom 
settled instantly and fell over his sooty face when he contemplaced 
the lowered musket, still pointed at him. 

"Cuffee," I said. 

He started, thrusting the half dollar into his breeches pocket. 

"Cuffee," I continued, "I want that Lieutenant who is staying in 
your mistress' house." 

A broad grin slowly spread over and illuminated Cuffee's porten- 
tously black physiognomy. He was silent a moment, and then said : 

"Go an' cotch him, massa. He's in dar." 

"Yes," I responded, "I know that, but he is armed and desperate, 
and if I open the door he will shoot. You must open it. He knows 
your voice and will come unarmed to admit you with }our load of 
wood. When he opens the door my musket will make him stand 
harmless and helpless. ' ' 

•■ You is gwine to tuck him wid ye, is ye? An' he aint comin' back 
enny mo? " Cuffee asked, with a look of anxious inquiry. 

I answered him that the deserter would be seen no more in 
La Fayette. 

"All right, massa. Mistis nestils to him moas too much enny how 
and Cuffee doesn't want any white boss on dis place." 

He piled up the wood on his shoulder and moved to the house. 
He leaned forward and the wood struck the door. He had hardly 
asked the Lieutenant to oi)en it when the young gentleman appeared 
in his night clothes. The click of the lock and gleam of the bright 
gun barrel almost touching his face, paralyzed him. "Walk out," I 
said. "Cuffee, bring out the gentleman's clothes, and don't forget 
his pistols and other property. He must go with us, and we have no 
time to lose. When the sun rises, the bushwhackers, knowing we 
have left, will take the town." 

Pale and trembling, his lij)S white and eyes starting from their 
sockets, the young man read his final doom in the facts before him. 
It was not my musket that frightened him. He saw the gallows just 
behind me. His knees shook, teeth chattered, his face was of ashen hue. 

"Come out," I said. Holding the door-facing, and moving 
helplessly, he advanced, as I stepped backward. I whistled. My 



46 FAGOTS FROM THE CAI\IP FIRE. 

comrades came instantly. Cuffee assisted the deserter in dressing 
himself, and we were moving away when the vigorous widow, by some 
means became advised of what was occurring. 

She leaped out of the house in her night clothes, and alternately 
weeping and railing at us, demanded the release of her "husband." 
She sought to pass me and reach the tAvo men between whom her 
lover was rapidly moving away. 

I caught her arm and asked if she had "reflected what disgrace she 
was bringing upon her name by this public betra3f^al of relations 
subsisting between herself and that deserter? The neighbors are 
awake. See the lights in that cottage, and how fires blaze this cold, 
bright morning on many hearths, and yet here you are in your gown 
howling after that deserter. Your child will be dishonored ! " 

The woman stopped. She covered her ears with her hands and 
stared fixedly and wonderingly in my face. 

"Go back," I exclaimed, and thrusting her hand violently from 
me, I left her mute and motionless. I had not gone very far, when, 
looking back, the hapless widow had disappeared. I never saw her 
afterwards, and am sorry to tell her, even now, since every wanderer 
in Northern Georgia will read this book, that her lieutenant was 
sent under guard to his command which had been transferred to 
Virginia, and there he was tried, convicted, and shot for desertion. 
For obvious reasons I have not given his name, once honored every- 
where in the South, or that of the fascinating dame who surely loved 
him very tenderly. 

We moved leisurely toward Ringgold. We had heard from a 
farmers' s good wife, from whom we bought eggs for breakfast, that 
there was a deserter, as she believed, secreted at a designated neigh- 
bor's house. We were then about nine miles from La Fayette. She 
said that the mistress of the place had a child not more than ten or 
fifteen days old, and that half a dozen women were always there to 
serve up the gossip of the country for the delectation of tlie poor 
mother, still bed-ridden. 

"It will happen, therefore, said the good dame, that if you search 
the loft and inspect the out-houses, you will be beset by the most 
frightful scolds that ever assailed a soldier. The women that meet 
there are unlettered wives or daughters of bushwhackers and one or 
two men would not be safe in attempting to discover the hiding place 
of a deserter from the southern army. 

Very unwillingly did the two females who met us at the doorway, 
admit us into the house designated. My force was now reduced to six 
men and our appearance was not very imposing. But when the 
women saw that we were armed and resolute, we were told by a thin- 
visaged, long-nosed, angular creature to "search g.nd be derned ! " 
She shook at us an old cotton umbrella and said: " Ef this 'ere 
umbaril would shoot I'd kill the last derned one of ye ! I thot you 
was a lot of Jeff Davis' sneaks and spies to cum pokin' about under 
people's beds and things ! " 



FAGOTS FROM THE CAMP FIRE. 47 

Here a meek-looking, tearful woman nudged the fierce declaimer 
with her elbow. I observed the movement and accepted the suggestion 
in reference to the beds. But the violent old harridan talked and 
raved only the more violently and volubly until she finally broke 
down giving way to floods of grief pumped up by impotent rage. 

We peered into every nook and corner of the house, and looked 
under every bed and finally went away, still believing that a deserter 
lurked about the place. But we abandoned the search and concluded 
at last the bird had flown. We loitered for a time at the spring under 
the hill near the house. A barefoot boy, a cunning little rascaU 
twelve or thirteen years old, was throwing pebbles into the spring. I 
soon discovered that he knew what were our purposes, and where the 
deserter was concealed. I offered the urchin a silver half dollar to 
tell. He yielded at last, unable to withstand a bribe involving the 
instant delivery of a box of percussion caps. He told me to raise the 
planks under his sick mother's bed and I would find there a man 
whom he "didn't love." He said this fellow "had bin thar more'n 
a year, off and on, and my own dad, he's bin a soldiering sumwhar in 
Virginney," he believed. 

The boy asked what we proposed to "do with Mr. Jolwon." I 
asked why he wished to know. 

"Oh ! nuffin much," said the youth, "he aint my dad and Fm jest 
tired of folks axin' me ef he aint." 

We returned to the house, encountering at the entrance a fiercer 
volley of imprecations than before. Even the silent, weeping dame, 
whose pitiful face and heart-rending sighs had excited our compassion, 
was now voluble and defiant. 

" Here's six pore lone wimmin right 'ere in this 'ere naberhood an' 
nary a man to take care of us, and look arter us, but one, and you 
mean Jeff Davisites want to take him away." 

She broke down completely, dissolving in a flood of tears, and 
fell weeping beside Spratling, who, with a cocked pistol in his hand, 
disapj)eared under the sick woman's bed. She screamed, the baby 
shrieked, the women all crying out, danced hysterically about the 
apartment. 

Spratling lifted a i>lank from the floor and ordered the "d d 

ground hog, ' ' as he pronounced him, to ' 'crawl out. ' ' The cocked pistol 
nudged him under his ribs. He begged Spratling not to shoot, and 
came forth submissively enough. I had obtained a pair of hand- 
cuffs in the jail at La Fayette. Persuaded by Spratling's repeater, the 
deserter, Jobson, dropped his wrists into the iron bands. I locked 
them and turning to the petrified, horror-struck virago who had 
abused me so mercilessly, I said most harshly : 

"Hold up your hands! you, too, shall be hanged for harboring 
deserters. ' ' 

Her courage gave way. She gasped for breath, grew pale as a 
corpse and fell backward, her head striking the floor heavily. 

The excitement had been too much for her. I was alarmed. It 



48 FAGOTS FROM THE CAMP FIRE. 

never had occurred to me that I would kill a woman. Of men slai 
in an open field and fair fight, or to save my own life when assaile^ 
by ambushed enemies, I never recked a moment, but when thi 
ungainly, obstreperous woman fell, I confess I shuddered, and simpl 
because of the sex of the dead. I dashed a bucket of water in he 
face and when at length she gasped for breath, I thrust a canteen c 
whiskey down her throat. 

It is a solemn fact, incredible as it may seem, and three of m 
comrades of that day, still living, will attest this statement, that whe 
the fiery liquor began to gurgle, as it trickled and leaped along th 
rough-ribbed channel of her elongated (jesophagus and finally lighten 
blazing camp fires beneath her diaphragm, she sighed and openei 
her eyes. Then she looked up into my face very tenderly, ani 
smiled, oh ! so lovingly ! The fiery draught was 

" Sweet as the desert fountain's wave 
To lips just cooled in time to save." 

I rose up exasperated and wished at the moment that death migl: 
seize, and the devil fly away with the grateful, whiskey-lovin 
creature. I jerked the canteen from beneath her toothless gums 
Her lips collapsed and struck one another as did the sides of th 
empty Confederacy not very long afterwards. The secret of womanl 
devotion to the ungainly, cowardly Jobson was disclosed. He was 
distiller of "pine top" or "gum log" whiskey in a cavernous valle} 
and a canteen would have been more effective than a repeater i 
discovering his hiding place. 

Mr. Jobson fettered, I ordered my men to march. 

After the annoyances and excitement of the day there was a radian 
serenity of light crowning the hills, and glowing at sunset about mor 
distant mountains, that throbbed in its intensity. It was divinel 
restful, like the passion and peace of love when it has all to adore an 
nothing to desire. The splendor and beauty of mountains crowne 
by the glories of the setting sun and contemplated through th: 
transparent atmosphere were matchless. There was a gleam of divin 
glory in aspects of nature about me and I basked in the sweet invis 
orating air that was like a breath of Paradise. 

Ten days later Jobson was tried, convicted, and shot as a deserter. 



CHAPTER VII. 



Soldierly Courage. — Aiiother De-erter. — A Mountain Beaut)'. — A I>ying Soldier. — 
"He took up his Bed and Walked." — .Spratling falls in Love. — Ash-Cakes. — 
Ellison Escapes. 

^^'hen my brigade was going into action at Chattanooga, September, 
1S63, Tom Ellison, a private from Coffeeville, Texas, grew very 
sick. Weak nerves caused his fall. He was simply paralyzed and 
helpless from insane terror. I have seen brave men, so esteemed at 
home, and because of courage illustrated in deadly personal conflicts, 
shrink into absolute helplessness when first moving under fire and 
advancing upon serried ranks of armed battalions. Again I have seen 
those bravest in battle, and then utterly oblivious of themselves, who 
shrank timidly from a personal rencontre. Fear is an unaccountable 
passion, and I am persuaded, after no little experience in fighting, as 
a scout, as a veteran, and as a private citizen, that courage is com- 
monly the fear of being thought a coward. Few are wholly devoid, 
like (leneral Forrest, of the passion of fear, and the bravest are 
sometimes hopelessly victimized, when they least expect it, by absurd 
terror. 

But this man Ellison, in the presence of danger so imposing and 
sublime that most soldiers, in its face, absolutely forget their own 
identity, becoming wholly reckless, shrank down in his place in the 
line of battle, and no force or danger or sense of shame could drive 
liim forward. Afterward, and from that day, he was dangerously 
sick. Doctors said his nervous system was wholly shattered by 
terror. 

When our army retreated from Missionary Ridge, in November, 
1S63, E^llison was left sick within the Federal lines. His comrades 
said he had taken the "iron-clad" oath of fidelity to the Union, gone 
north, and died. But soon after we had captured Jobson, a country 
dame informed lis that a deserter was sojourning at a neighbor's house 

4 



50 FAGOTS FROM THE CAMP FIRE. 

hard by Jobson's den. We -were especially anxious to capture this 
faithless Confederate, l)erause, assured of encountering and mortall) 
offending one or more of the horrible women who sought so earnestl} 
to prevent the extraction of Jobson from his subterranean hiding place. 
But greater became our anxiety to secure the deserter when informec 
that he was a Texan. Our brigade was from that commonwealth anc 
felt itself disgraced that a citizen of Texas })roved false to the caust 
we had espoused. 

We surrounded the house designated by our informant before day 
dawn, that none who slept within might leave without our assent 
At sunrise I knocked at the door. Heavy footsteps of my men anc 
clanking of our arms at once extorted groans from the sick man. 1 
did not, of course, know who he was and only that he pretended to be 
suffering fearfully, and yet had walked during the week, to Chattanoogr 
and back, quite forty miles, in a single day. I knew these to b( 
absolute facts and am sure that he would have deemed me a heart 
less wretch if he had beheld significant smiles overspreading mine anc 
Spratling's faces when we heard his heart-rending groans and pitifu 
cries for relief. 

Sure enough, when a pretty girl admitted us, she asked us to stej 
lightly, saying, "There's a very sick man within. Any noise distresses 
him. He is very sick and nervously sensitive. Step lightly. I an' 
not sure he will be glad to see you. He is from Texas and must ht 
true to the South." 

The bright-eyed, cunning woman smiled, bent her knees, her bod> 
went down aljout four inches, her head was projected slightly, anc 
she pulled gently upward at each side of her homespun, striped dress- 
skirt. Such was her salutation, as she stepped lightly iDackward; 
inviting us to enter. The details show that a veritable queen of fashion, 
among /loi aristoi. could hardly have greeted us in a more approved 
manner. Then, too, she smiled as blandly and naturally anc 
graciously as if she were even delighted because of our coming. 

What social triumphs this cunning, pretty creature, whose form wa^ 
perfect as her face was fair, features regular, and eyes brilliant, might 
have achieved if she had not been born and reared in comparative 
poverty among the mountains and sand-hills and pine-covered straw 
fields of Northern Georgia. 

I could not help discovering in the fascinations of the laughing, 
youthful, and beautiful woman very potent apologies for the unearthl) 
groans and execrations that proceeded from the apartment of the 
dying (?) soldier. I whispered to Spratling : 

" No wonder he is dying. A true soldier could afford to die for a 
woman like that. I don't blame the fellow, even though he be a 
Texan, for desertion." 

"I don't see how he could well help it," was Spratling's generous 
response, and Spratling still stared vacantly at the doorway withir 
which the pretty sprite had disappeared. 

Evidently the great, rude soldier was the victim of the winning 



FAGOTS FROM THE CAMP FIRE. 51 

merry eyes and sunny smiles of the meteor-like vision of beaut_\- that 
flashed so suddenly across his pathway. 

What was our amazement on entering the sick-room to behold the 
familiar face of our late "dead" comrade, Ellison. He, too, was 
startled. He drew his hand across his eyes. He rose up in bed. 
He shrank back abashed. A death-like pallor overspread his face. 
He had evidently been dreaming of scenes in which the chief actor 
sits on his coffin while a dozen soldiers, half of them using muskets 
charged with blank cartridges, that no one of them may know who 
does murder, fire upon the deserter. Such executions are very frequent 
in civil wars. There were northern men in southern, and Southerners 
by birth in northern armies. To desert a cause which it cost so much to 
uphold, and abandon an undertaking which seemed hopeless, and more 
than purposeless to those who revered the Federal Union, was easy. 
Multitudes were fighting against their original convictions of duty 
and right, and others encountered dearest friends and kindred on 
bloody battle-fields. That desertions in such a war were numberless 
surprised no one, and the very greatness of their numbers rendered 
severity and certainty of punishment the more necessary. 

No wonder Ellison shuddered. He knew that of all men Spratling 
and I would be most anxious to punish one who had brought disgrace 
upon our brigade. He groaned in an agony of terror. I could not 
help pitying him. But the necessities of the case were inexorable. 
I ordered him to rise and dress himself. He groaned and wept and 
insisted it was impossible. I drew a gleaming knife and holding his 
head said that if he did not obey instantly I would cut off both his 
ears, and if he still refused I would order my men to fire on him. 
Groaning and weeping like a pitiful baby, he crawled out of bed and 
with trembling hands and quivering limbs dressed himself and sank 
upon the floor exhausted by his terror. 

" You may rest a moment," I said, "but you shall march thirty 
miles to-day. Bushwhackers are on our track. We must take the 
woods. Be cheerful ; order breakfast for all of us. We will pay for 
it in silver, and I think" — the wretch was fumbling with a pair of 
crutches — "you can leave your crutches. You didn't take them with 
you when you went to Chattanooga and back, last Tuesday." 

Poor Ellison ! I was sorry for him. He stared at me a moment, 
and then fell over backward, shocked and swooning. I baptised his 
face in whiskey, pouring a little in his open mouth, and his senses 
returning, he looked vacantly around the room for a moment, and said : 

"I am ready. Tell me what I must do." 

I repeated the suggestion as to the necessity for our immediate 
departure, and ordering one of my men to hand-cuff and take charge 
of Ellison, felt that the game was my own. 

Spratling had modestly suggested his own willingness to see that we 
had an early breakfast. In social life he was unique. He talked 
little and rarely laughed; but if his stories were brief, they wel-e most 
amusing, and the more, because of his profound solemnity. 



52 FAGOTS FROM THE CAMP FIRE. 

He was a fine-looking, blue-eyed, light-haired, good-natured youn 
fellow, six feet four inches high, of infinite pluck, enormous strength 
and perfect truthfulness. He was born and reared wholly innocent c 
contamination by books, in the mountains of Tennessee, had migrate 
in his early youth to Texas, and came back a soldier, twenty-eigh 
years old, with Granbury's brigade, in 1861, to his old home. 

I a.ssented, of course, to Spratling's proposition to have breakfas 
prepared for us and went out to see that no one approached, ani 
station a sentinel at a proper point of observation. Spratling, I dis 
covered, was in the little kitchen in the yard with the pretty maide 
and her mother. He was evidently pointing towards Ellison's bed 
room, and telling of the great miracle wrought, and how it wa 
effected, when poor Ellison heroically put aside his crutches ani 
walked before a persuasive musket. Bessie Starnes — I learned th 
name soon afterward from Sjjratling — laughed so immoderately an( 
neglected culinary duties so sadly, that, when I drew nearer, he 
mother was chiding her. Finally the good dame said, " Mr. Spratling 
if you want breakfast, you must quit spinnin' them funny yarni! 
That gal thar alius was a rebel, and I aint mad about it, and now she' 
clean gone daft because you tell her about the devilment you've don 
and because she thinks you a game, true soldier, and not one of then 
thievin' deserters like that hand-cuffed wretch sittin' at the gate tha 
and aweepin' like his heart would break. I do hate the likes o' him 
and Bessie loves a brave feller." 

Then the good woman suddenly checked herself and cast a mos 
inquisitive glance at her pretty daughter gazing steadfastly in Sjn-at 
ling's honest, earnest, clear blue eyes. 

He began to tell of the fascinations of his wild home-life on cattle 
flecked plains of Texas. Bessie listened breathlessly and so intently tha 
the mother's warning was unheeded, and roasting potatoes were utterl; 
forgotten. The mother gazed in her face again, as if to read he 
inmost thoughts, and sighed. Perhaps it was because she feared he 
child's fidelity to plighted troth was endangered. Evidently th( 
mother ascribed to the daughter the feelings which I traced an( 
discovered in Spratling's absent-mindedness. He had at least confessed 
for the first time, boundless admiration for a woman. 

The mother seemed to brood over the f:icts Ijefore her. She wa 
silent, and talked and smiled no more. What evil in her eye: 
tlireatened her winsome child? She devoted herself the mon 
earnestly to accustomed tasks. She kneaded corn meal dough, addini 
salt, in a i)oplar tray. When it was of proper consistency she mad* 
round, flat "pones," almost an inch and a half in the middle. Thes( 
were deposited in the midst of the fire on the hot hearthstones, anc 
covered with red hot hickor\- ashes. The bread was thus roasted 
When extracted, piping hot, it was the famous negro "ash-cake," t( 
be eaten with butter and milk. Each of us ate one of these ash-cakes 
weighing half a pound, and drank a quart of milk. Broiled spare 
ril)s, biscuits, and coftee made the breakfast perfect in a soldier's eyes 



FAGOTS FROM THE CAMP FIRE. 53 

Bessie served iis at table and I am sure that Spratling never knew 
what he ate or whether he ate at all. Bessie always stood, by accident 
of course, where she could look into Spratling's face, and such a feast 
of love and luxuries was never spread. Spratling, a very cannibal 
with his eyes, was devouring the charming girl. 

Hebe never moved more daintily or served at Olympic feasts with 
more graceful decorum than did pretty Bessie Starnes, when gliding 
noiselessly about the rude table spread for rebel scouts. 

Bessie we knew to be a devout rebel. The mother, when we paid 
for the breakfast, in silver half dollars, was moved to confess her 
devotion to the Confederacy, and ask us to call whenever it was pos- 
sible. The head of the household, in Oglethorpe County, below our 
lines, when our army retreated, found it difficult to secure access to 
his home. In his behalf we promised Mrs. Starnes to intervene when 
we returned to the army. 

We left Spratling and Bessie at the gate. Spratling was holding her 
hand. 

"Join us," I said, when I passed him, and when going away, "at 
the 'Big Spring,' at noon to-day." 

Bessie gave me an astonished, but as I thought, a grateful look. 
Spratling's face was slightly flushed. I i)ressed Bessie's hand, and 
with Ellison before me, walked away toward Cleburne's encampment. 

Conscious of the honest sincerity of Spratling's devotion and of the 
depth and strength of his affections, I was anxious to be assured that 
his love was requited. If Bessie rejected his proffered love and 
fidelity, I believed he would be utterly unmanned. In any event, I 
so dreaded the result that I could not refrain from asking him, when 
we were alone at noon, "whether Bessie could be trusted." 

He evidently divined the true meaning of this modest inquiry, and 
answered : 

"Of course; but I must go there again as soon as you can spare 
me." 

Each relying upon the other as confidently as upon himself, and 
each having often imperiled his life that the other might live ; insei> 
arable as Spratling and I had been from the hour that Jefferson Davis 
lighted the match at Fort Sumter that set a nation aflame ; made 
friends by common toils and dangers and by indestructible confidence ; 
still Spratling never alluded to Mamie Hughes, and the word "Bessie" 
never passed my lips. I recognized the sanctity that invested the 
name in Spratling's eyes, and he knew that woman alone may enter 
the gate-way to that garden of the affections in which the sensitive 
love-plant blossoms and bears most delicious fruit. 

Anticipating somewhat the order of events, it is proper to state that 
Ellison, our prisoner, was tried by a drum-head court-martial for 
desertion, and properly acquitted. He had been left sick in bed in 
the enemy's lines, and was never a deserter. He returned to his 
I)lace in the ranks, and there was no better soldier from that day forth 
than 'Ellison. He lived, it is true, in a sort of trance, was always 



54 FAGOTS FROM THE CAMP FIRE. 

silent and abstracted, obeying orders mechanically. Some weeks after 
his acquittal and after events here recited occurred, Spratling was 
sitting beside me in our tent, in front of General Granbury's, when 
Ellison, with his accustomed anxious, feverish look, passed us very 
hurriedly. 

Spratling, pointing towards him, said : 

" I am sorry for that poor fellow, and for myself that I aided in 
arresting and frightening him. True, we secured testimony that saved 
his life, but I sometimes think that we caused him to become the silent, 
nervous hypochondriac that he is, and then, do you know that he 
loved Bessie Starnes to madness. He thinks I robbed him of her 
love. I will tell him everything, some day." 

There was infinite sadness, to be accounted for hereafter, in Sprat- 
ling's low, melancholy tones when the last sentence fell from his lips. 
I had heard of the deep shadow that fell across the sunshine that once 
lighted up with gladness his eyes and face, and warmed his generous, 
loving heart. 



CHAPTER VIII. 



The Underground Railway. — A Desperate Adventure. — Secession in Kentucky and 
Tennessee. — In a Busiiwhackers' Den. — An Heroic Woman. — The Catastro- 
phe. — A Graveyard Scene. — The Ghost. — A '• Notiss." — A Woman's Eloquence 
and Matchless Patriotism. — .\ Monument to her Fame. 

To discover agencies employed in effecting escapes by deserters, was 
eminently desirable. Within the hour that the exit of a fugitive from 
our army was discovered, his capture, we had learned, was impossible. 
He seemed spirited away. There w.is a mystery about it that excited, 
keen inquiry and not a little anxiety among our commanders. I was 
instructed to put a period, if possible, to the process and resort to any 
means I might approve and employ any force required. I repaired at 
once to General Cleburne, who was my personal friend, and said to 
him that the easiest and surest, if most dangerous, mode of ascertain- 
ing the facts would be found by my own desertion. He approved the 
proposition, and. General Johnston assenting, I selected Doc Nooe, 
or Noah, a Kentuckian, as the sharer of my toils and of the hazards 
of the undertaking. He knew leading men in many portions of the 
Dark and Bloody Ground, as Spratling did not, and when questioned 
in reference to people or localities, would commit no blunders. He 
had been two years a citizen of Texas, and I knew him thoroughly. 
He was courageous, honest, and a devout believer in the justice of the 
Confederate cause. He loved the excitement of battle and was 
thoroughly tired of idleness in winter quarters. If arrested, he was 
1o be the tale-bearer to account for our flight and assure our captors 
that our sole purpose was to return to our old homes and kindred in 
Kentticky. But for this, I would perhaps have preferred Spratling as 
my coadjutor in this scheme of desperate hazard. 



56 FAGOTS FROM THE CAMP FIRE. 

With these general plans defined, Nooe and 1 left our lines about 
day-dawn. Even before sunrise, while moving rapidly along a little 
path leading toward Chattanooga and passing between Villanow and 
Ringgold Gap, we were hailed by a watcher in a thicket by the road- 
side. ^Ve stated at once the purpose of our flight. There was no 
danger incurred. If our captors were Confederates, we would be 
taken to Cleburne's or Johnston's headquarters and tried, convicted, 
and shot — with blank cartridges. If our captors were Federal scouts, 
we were certainly safe if our statements were accepted as truthful. 
We were hastily questioned and such was the overweening confidence 
of the common soldier of the North in the supreme, palpable justice 
of his cause that he never doubted when even hardened, fighting 
rebels pretended to approve it. In the loyalists' eyes it was almost 
impossible for a Kentuckian to be disloyal. There were genuine 
adherents, it was supposed, of Davis, Yancey, Ben Hill, and Bob 
Toombs, away down south, but very few, it was thought, in Kentucky 
and Tennessee. 

At the rendezvous of Federal scouts and of bushwhackers not far 
away, to which we were hurried, we were rigidly questioned. A 
dozen men stood around and listened, intently scanning our faces. 
The sun was above the horizon, but its direct rays did not illumine 
our resting place till it was high in the heavens. In the gloom of the 
deep valley and beneath a great i)rojecting stone that concealed 
perfectly the cavity in the mountain-side occupied by these daring 
men, we underwent this searching examination. The Kentuckian, 
Nooe, never hesitated. He never once faltered. His courage anc 
intelligence alike were faultless. The most keen-sighted — and bush 
whackers were more apt to suspect the honesty of others than Federa 
soldiers — were thoroughly satisfied of our perfect integrity. Ever} 
kindness was shown us. Cigars, liquors, and luxuries amazed anc 
delighted us. We ate and drank prudently. Our lives were a' 
hazard. Any blunder, even the slightest, would be instantly fatal. 

The hiding place was wisely chosen. No visible road or patl 
approached it. The beaten track we followed led near and beyonc 
it. We bent low beneath dense undergrowth, and diverging abrupth 
i'rom the path, we found, not far away, at the head of the deep ravine 
the narrow entrance, between great stones, to the broad deep chasn 
beneath the northern side of the mountain. If enemies came fron 
the south, occupants of the rendezvous could descend into the ravini 
and escape unseen ; if from the north, they could ascend the cliff 
and pursuit was almost impossible. Sentinels, at each point o 
approach, were always on duty. Each week, late at night, guides 
with deserters who had been gathered in, went forth to Chattanooga 
The residence of Mrs. Shields, whose business it was to provide 
deserters with food and lodging, was the last resting place of deserter 
entering the Federal outposts. 

We remained in the bushwhackers' den forty-eight hours, when w( 
were consigned to the care of a guide and went directly toward thi 



FAGOTS FROM THE CAMP FIRE. 57. 

nearest pickets of Sherman's army. We had studied meaiiwhile, as 
carefully as possible, the topography of the country and watched every 
landmark closely, that we might make no mistake when we returned 
to requite with bullets every kindness shown us by our generous, 
confiding hosts. 

How infinitely brutal and brutalizing is war ! Lying, stealing, 
treason, and murder become foremost of fine arts. 

We arrived at Mrs. Shields' covert, with our guide, before daylight. 
Her husband was absent, serving as a blacksmith, in Chattanooga. 
Both were living, I am told, not many weeks ago. 

She was bright-eyed, shrewd, fearless, and active — eminently well 
fitted for the position she occupied. How keenly and earnestly she 
scanned our faces at breakfast ! I had little to say, while Nooe 
talked volubly of Kentucky and of anticipated delights that would 
attend his arrival at home. He never seemed conscious of the 
presence or suspicious watchfulness of the adroit, wary, fiery, little 
woman. We ate ravenously and were greatly fatigued. Therefore, 
we stated to our guide, that we must sleep a few hours, before the 
resumption of our march, and that he might return, if he chose, to 
the bushwhackers' rendezvous. He assented. 
We were left alone at Mrs. Shields'. 

During the day we discovered that in the smoke-house, jjantry, and 
in the loft, rich and abundant stores and supplies of all descriptions 
were deposited by Federal authority, for the use of bushwhackers and 
deserters. Federal picket lines were only two miles distant. 

Just before sunset, a little boy, when we had bidden Mrs. Shields 
an affectionate adieu, was assigned the needless task of leading us to 
the nearest pickets. The boy was lazy and stupid. We gave him a 
few small coins, and telling him we could find our way without his 
assistance, induced his return. 

Before leaving our headquarters we had so ordered events that a 
cavalry force of thirty men should come to meet us, by way of Ring- 
gold Gap, at a little church within ten or twelve miles of Mrs. 
Shields'. 

It was now very dark, and we soon lost our way and even feared 
that we might encounter Federal soldiers at every turn of the road. 
One's fancy, stimulated by reasonable apprehensions of danger and by 
darkness, becomes singularly productive of causes of alarm. Great 
stones and broken trees became silent, watchful horsemen, and shadows 
made by clouds and uncertain moonlight, falling through tree-tops, 
became ghostly wanderers, resting upon dense undergrowth along 
either side of our devious pathway. Our senses were keenly alive to 
the slightest impressions. Nooe detected, telling me of it in low 
tones, a faint, unsteady light not fiir from us. We feared we had lost 
our reckoning and discovered the resting place of a body of Federal 
jiickets. 

The forest was unbroken. No weary, somnolent winds, wooing 
sleep in silent solitudes, wandered by to disturb death-like repose that 



58 FAGOTS FROM THE CAMP FIRE. 

rested upon the great trees and stilled the pulse-beats of the voiceless 
woods. 

Discovering at length that the pale, uncertain light came through 
crevices in a wretched log hut, we approached it very slowly and very 
cautiously. No sound came from within, and at length we were satis- 
fied that the cabin was unoccupied. The fitful light we had seen was 
produced by an expiring blaze burning very low on the hearthstone. 
We went about the cabin and finally called out, "Who is here?" 
Again and again, when we called aloud, there was no response. We 
rebuilt the fire and found every evidence of the recent and hurried 
abandonment of the house. Roasted potatoes had been left on the 
hearth and two tin plates and knives and forks on the table. A 
blanket and mean bed-clothes were on a sort of bedstead attached to 
the walls of the hut. At length we discovered blood stains on the 
floor. A dead body had evidently been dragged out at the doorway. 

It was now midnight. There was nothing to detain us. Hunger 
impelled us to take the potatoes, and we resumed our journey. The 
very stillness of the forest made me whisper to Nooe : 

"Nature is shocked, stupefied, and silenced by witnessing the 
ghastly deed done here to-day in this wretched cabin. Bushwhackers 
have been here. It is their hideous work." 

We passed near a little faded white church. The moon had risen 
and was now shining lustrously. We could see distinctly the few 
white gravestones in the church-yard, and fifty steps away, white 
palings, tipped with black, enclosed many graves, and now and then 
a rail pen encompassed some freshly raised hillock. 

"See," I said, "even here there are newly made graves and where- 
ever our footsteps lead, we soldiers are only digging graves. Mighty 
armies are engaged in this mournful task. Bushwhackers and free- 
booters and scouts — all of us — are now grave-diggers. I am sure, 
when looking upon these freshly reared, narrow mounds over which I 
have been walking every day since the spring of 1861, that blessed 
mother earth, stricken with grief, always heaves a little sigh when one 
of her children falls. ' ' 

I had hardly spoken, when a white figure slowly rose up in the misty 
moonlight out of a grave in the remotest corner of this " God's acre." 
Very slowly it came forth, as it seemed to us, out of the earth. It 
stood still a moment, as if unused to the dim shadows of the silent 
night, and then glided slowly and silently, as if moved by the lazy 
winds, down the declivity. 

It soon passed from sight. 

Nooe and I stood still, staring with wide open eyes in stupefied 
silence in the direction the ghostly apparition had moved. 

"What, in God's name, is that?" he asked. 

"Let's follow it, and see," I answered. The suggestion restored 
manhood and excited a share of that ardor springing from the presence 
of danger over which courage is delighted to triumph. 

We walked rapidly in the direction taken by the seeming shadow of 



FACiOTS FROM THE CAMP FIRE. 59 

death escaped from a newly made grave. As we passed the grave, we 
saw that no grass had grown over its little hillock and the clods had 
not been dissolved in nature's tears. 

"Perhaps," I said, "somebody has been buried alive and we have 
witnessed this strange resurrection." 

"God knows," answered Nooe ; "I only know if I had not started 
to find out, I would gladly go back." 

We slackened our speed when we again caught sight of the slowly 
moving figure. 

"Who is that?" exclaimed Nooe, in nervous, quick tones. 

The apparition turned and stood still. We advanced very slowly. 
I could hear distinctly the beating of my oppressed heart and think 
that my hair stood on end. Nooe hesitated. 

" Shall we go on?" he asked, in unconsciously uttered words. 

Desperate rather than heroic, I answered, "What, Nooe, do we 
fear?" 

And yet in all my life, in a charge upon serried ranks of a solid 
phalanx, scaling a fort's walls as leader of a forlorn-hope, or meeting a 
cavalry charge, or when storming a battery, I had never been victim- 
ized by such unseemly terror. 

"Surely," I thought, "graveyards do yawn and discontented spirits, 
in these troublous times, do revisit the land of the living." 

We were now advancing very slowly and within ten paces of the 
apparition, standing still and facing us in a narrow path hedged in by 
dense thickets and overhanging tree-tops. Little, tremulous, narrovv' 
streaks of pale moonlight, penetrating dense shadows of forest foliage, 
fell upon the white-robed figure before us. 

In husky tones, Nooe asked : 

"Who — what are you?" 

There was an age of silence, deeper than that of the breathless 
woods or of footfalls of the ghastly shadow before us. Like some 
great sorrow or weight of intolerable grief, this death-like stillness 
bore me down, and I felt that I was in the presence of a living death. 

The answer came at last. In low, tremulous, painful accents of 
unutterable anguish, a woman's voice responded : 

"I am most miserable, and helpless, and heart-broken of women." 

There was an interval of silence. 

"Why are you here, and why in that graveyard at this late hour?" 
I asked. 

"We fled from bushwhackers in East Tennessee and only two days 
ago succeeded, by the merest accident and good fortune, as we 
thought, in passing through Sherman's lines. My husband was one 
of a squad of Confederate soldiers ordered to execute the decree of a 
court-martial at Greenville and hang an aged man who burned sonie 
railway bridge. His neighbors and friends swore they would avenge 
the 'patriot's' death. They resolved to kill every person who was a 
participant in the taking of that old man's life. Finding that we were 
nowhere safe in East Tennessee, and having been twice shot at, once 



6o FAGOTS FROM THE CAMP FIRE. 

in our own home at night, we came south. But ministers of 
vengeance were on our track. The worst of bushwhackers about 
Chattanooga are my old neighbors. I know them well. We were 
resting at the little cabin on the roadside, on that hill there, when 
three of those terrible men from Green County — I recognized them — 
rode up to the door, and in my presence, shot my husband to death. 

"Whether this happened to-day, or yesterday, or a week ago, I 
cannot tell. I know that people came, dug a shallow grave, and 
buried him in a blanket, and left me here. I only woke from a trance 
a little while ago, and when I looked up, I saw the gravestones about 
me, and the little church on the hill, and the path that led to the 
wretched cabin where we had rested a day. 

"I am very, very cold, and going back to the little cabin, if I can 
find it. I don't know what is to become of me. I am friendless, 
helpless, and alone." 

The wretched woman, as we learned afterward, had been seemingly 
unconscious when her husband was buried by the bushwhackers and 
two or three people of the vicinity, and these had hardly finished the 
irksome task of interment when a scpiad of ('onfederate cavalry was 
discovered taking possession of the church. Bushwhackers and pity- 
ing people fled, leaving the widowed woman where we first mistook 
her for a disembodied spirit. 

The cavalrymen who frightened away the grave-diggers were the 
very body of men sought for by Nooe and myself. Uncertain as we 
were of the correctness of the course we had pursued through the 
night, guided by moon and stars, it happened that we had deviated 
very slightly from the direct route from Mrs. Shields' to the appointed 
place of rendezvous at the little church. 

The helpless woman was to be cared for and we must move at once. 
She had been subjected to so many griefs and woes of war that this 
last great sorrow seemed only to invest her with a sort of dazed 
insensibility to suffering, giving a marble-like hardness to her features. 
She was very handsome and graceful. Her perfect self-possession and 
natural kindliness and intelligence won the regard and respect of the 
rudest soldiers. We "impressed" the wagon of a farmer for her use, 
and at sunrise moved rapidly toward our nearest outposts. The lady 
was sent to General Johnston's headquarters, while with fifty cavalry- 
men, liaving stationed a force at each point of exit, I made a descent 
upon the bushwhackers' stronghold. They had been warned of danger 
and fled. I found pinned securely to a tree at the entrance to their 
cavernous retreat a rudely written note of which I have a copy. It is 
couched in the following graceful terms : 

"NOTISS. 

" Ef we ever cum acrost you two dam rascals and spies again you 
dance on nuthin' and pul hemp like hell. We hang every Kaintuck 
we ketch. But want you sweet on old Kaintuck ! " 

Kuklux warnings, of a later period, were modeled after this graceful 



FAGOTS FROM THE CAMP FIRE. 6i 

proclamation of the outraged bushwhacker. Analyzing the proclama- 
tion I discovered that its writer was not wholly revengeful and 
malicious. While I am sure, if caught by him, I would have been 
hanged, yet, for all that, he appreciated the joke so deftly ])ractised by 
Nooe, by means of his beautiful and heartfelt disquisitions in the 
bushwhackers' den, and at the bushwhackers' feasts, pronounced upon 
the delights of his "Old Kentucky Home." 

The cavalry were sent to the outposts, while Nooe and I, with our 
orignal thirteen men, hurried back to Mrs. Shields'. We reached her 
hospitable dwelling before sunrise. An hour later my whole force, 
except Nooe and myself, never disguising the fact that they were 
rebels, were given an excellent l)reakfast. Mrs. Shields was a discreet 
\\oman and knew that twelve hungry soldiers are dangerous ; but when 
they produced silver with which to pay for her kin-dness, she was coldly 
hospitable. The men having breakfasted, Nooe and I entered the 
gateway. Mrs. Shields stood in the door and stared at us, and then 
shading her eyes with her hand from the bright sunlight, and gazing 
intently in our faces, was assured of our identity. I never beheld 
such an exhibition of insane rage and malevolence. She had been 
restraining herself with the utmost difficulty while my men were at 
t4ie table. She was forced to listen silently to their boastful stories, 
to recitals of their vaunted deeds, and to harsh criticisms upon the 
vices of bushwhackers. She was full of pent-up wrath, even before 
Nooe and I appeared. She was excited, too, because of denunciations 
heaped, on this occasion especially, on those who murdered the East 
Tennessee soldier in the hut at the little church. The young widow, 
the men said, though she moved about and talked and smiled, pro- 
duced the impression that she was still asleep, having never become 
conscious of her latest and greatest grief. She was in that condition, 
her escort said, when they left her at army head-quarters. 

The pent-up fury of Mrs. Shields broke down all restraints when I 
looked smilingly into her face, and asked her to give us breakfast. 
Her eyes and mouth, while she stared at me, were wide open. Then 
she exclaimed, in husky tones, her voice quivering with rage : 

"I would see you both eternally d d, first." 

She turned to the table, and while she vilified us and the "one-horse 
Jeff Davis Confederacy," she hurled i)lates and viands out of the l-)ack 
door. 

"I can feed honest, brave, rebel soldiers. That is bad enough for 
a woman who was born under the old flag and means to live and die 
under it, but would die a thousand deaths rather that let a pair of 
sneaking, lying, rebel spies sit at my table. Oh ! how you two did 
love Kentucky! I thought from the first you were a jxiir of Texas 
cattle thieves. I watched you and when you bribed that stupid boy, 
Bill Callaway, to come back, I knew you were not going into Chatta- 
nooga. I sent the first honest man that came by down to the picket 
lines, to inquire whether you had gone in. I had you tracked towards 
Mount Pisgah Church. I sent word to the bushwhackers' cave 



62 FAGOTS FROM THE CAMP FIRE. 

that you were coming with one hundred men to capture and hang 
them. They were saved by me, and you pitiful fools were out- 
manoeuvred by a woman. You might eat in my house if you hadn't 
been such a pair of stupendous asses. Outgeneraled by one little 
woman ! " And peals of mocking laughter rang through the house. 

The men listened in amazed silence. She talked most volubly and 
her keen intelligence was wrought up to vigorous action. Nobody 
could long submit in silence to such a castigation as she administered. 
Her eyes blazed with unaccountable fury, while she gesticulated 
violently and reasoned with the precision and fierceness of a most 
skillful prosecutor. Every imprecation fitted its place and there was 
cunning logic in her frightfully fierce objurgations. 

Seeing no end to the woman's vocabulary of epithets or themes 
of denunciation, I said to her that we had heard enough, and that 
\ye came, after paying for breakfast, to take charge of supplies 
deposited there by the northern army for the use of deserters and 
bushwhackers. 

Mrs. Shields was silent. She stared at me as if bewildered. She 
turned suddenly to the fire-place and seizing a half-consumed fagot 
threw it violently at my head. Living coals were scattered eveiiy- 
where. She rushed out of the house, and when I went to the back door, 
she had already thrust a fire-brand into a little shed attached to the 
main building and filled with hay. Almost instantly the heroic little 
woman, with a bundle of valuables in a large satchel and her bonnet 
on her head, was standing in the road contemplating, with a degree of 
satisfaction too profound for utterance, the destruction of her com- 
fortable home. 

We saved a few canvassed hams, several boxes of cheese, and a 
little canned food, but the brave, earnest, patriotic blacksmith's wife 
had again won a confessed victory by such a sacrifice as few men 
would have dreamed of making. She was then, and may be now, for 
aught I know, my mortal enemy, but she deserves a monument 
prouder and loftier than many that have been reared to perpetuate the 
memory of deeds infinitely less honorable and recjuiring infinitely less 
devotion and heroism than she illustrated when applying the torch to 
her own loved home. 

While ecjuestrian statues and bronze and marble everywhere, in 
Washington and other cities, tell of the grand achievements of men, 
why may not some artist's pencil or sculptor's chisel tell posterity of 
the deeds of this devoted woman, who sacrificed her wealth and all 
that she cherished, contemplating the conflagration with heartfelt joy, 
because she witnessed at the same moment the discomfiture of her 
country's enemies. 

No single grand public attestation of woman's worth and patriotism, 
as illustrated in the war between the States, has been carved on mon- 
umental stone or set up in bronze or limned by artist's pencil. But 
war crowned its infernal vices and crimes by hanging an innocent 
woman, a deed so foul that it overshadowed the horrible crime it 



FAGOTS FROM THE CAMP FIRE. 6$ 

sought to avenge. Through all ages, Mrs. Surratt's slender neck and 
clenched, motherly hands will hang out in the hot sunlight, swinging 
slowly round in their bundle of black rags. Her upturned, pitiful 
face will never be banished from the conscience of the people. 
Partial amends to woman should be made by rearing a monument to , 
fearless and devoted Mary Shields. 



CHAPTER IX. 



Conservatism. — Bell and Douglas. — Andrew Johnson. — "Rebels" and " Bush- 
\\hackers." — Mamie Hughes and the Bushwhacker. 

Knowing that smoke and flames of the conflagration would attract 
the attention of Federal pickets and scouts within a few miles of us, 
we made a hasty departure, going directly towards La Fayette. When, 
next morning at ten o'clock, we approached the town, a countryman, 
coming out, informed us that the place was occupied by a small body 
of Federal cavalry. 

A reconnaissance informed us that a courteous, kindly Federal soldier, 
Colonel Burke, of the Tenth Ohio Cavalry, was in charge of half a 
dozen Confederate ladies sent out of Nashville by Andrew Johnson, 
then, I believe, Military Governor of Tennessee. A like body of 
Confederates from our army head-quarters met Colonel Burke in 
La Fayette, they spent the night together, danced with the ladies from 
Nashville, and with all the pretty girls about La Fayette, stole the 
hearts of the choicest of them, and went away to return, not long 
afterward, to desolate the land with fire and sword. Soldierly hostility 
was purely political. It was never personal or social. The bush- 
whacker, on the contrar)-, was the personal, unrelenting foeman of 
every one who upheld tlie Confederacy. The reason was that a 
secessionist's fierceness and anxiety to consolidate southern opin- 
ions rendered him most intolerant. Before secession was accom- 
plished, contumely, abuse, and social exclusiveness were employed, 
and, in the Chilf States, a Union man, in 1861 — the people had been 
so instructed by fierce party leaders — was socially ostracized and 
despised. LTnhappily for the conservatives of the South, their great 
leaders, Bell and Douglas, the former superannuated and incapable of 
exertion or usefulness when nominated for the Presidency, and the 
latter, a citizen of a northern state, exercised no potency in the 
South, while Yancey, Toombs, Tom and Howell Cobb, and every 



FAGOTS FROM THE CAMP FIRE. 65 

Federal office holder in the South, as instructed by Davis and Quitman, 
Lamar and A. G. Brown, toiled side by side with Andrew Johnson 
and Isham G. Harris to consolidate the South. Andrew Johnson was 
hanged in effigy, in Memphis, by Whigs and Douglas men, in the fall 
of i860. Afterward, when each southern Federal senator vacated his 
seat, and Johnson, hating Jefferson Davis, saw how infinitely con- 
spicuous he himself became as the solitary southern senator, withdrew 
from association with his partisan friends, the adherents of Brecken- 
ridge, Davis, and Yancey, and i)ronounced for the Union. There- 
fore, the unmitigated abhorrence with which Johnson's personal and 
political character and conduct were contemplated by secessionists, and, 
therefore, the bitterness of this hostility between rebels and bush- 
whackers — the native southern fighting Union men. 

Our most dangerous and fearless foemen, as scouts, were these 
bushwhackers, and yet among these we found loyal personal friends, 
and thoroughly honest, trustworthy gentlemen. It will be remembered 
that we encountered and captured and held as a prisoner, some days, 
a bushwhacker and ex-schoolmaster named Wade. After studying 
liis character, I released him because of his accurately truthful state- 
ments, and in consideration of his i)romise to accompany Mamie 
Hughes, if she sought to come south, to her father's summer country 
seat, not far below Dalton and Tunnel Hill. While we were 
encamped in the woods near La Fayette, Wade came boldly to my 
sentry post, near the main road to Chattanooga, and asked to be 
conducted into my presence. I was pleased to meet him. I really 
liked the intelligent, honest, fearless Unionist, and then I was keenly 
anxious to hear from Mamie Hughes. We walked down to a little 
spring below the hill and there I asked impatiently : 

" Have you seen Mamie?" 

"Yes," answered Wade, "I went to her uncle's, near Charleston, 
on the Hiwassee. I pretended to be a sick East Tennessee Union 
soldier. She is the epitome of all rebeldom, and while her cousins 
came to hear me tell of my adventures, Mamie stood aloof. But I 
remarked at breakfast, while Mamie's face was half averted — she was 
my vis-a-vis — that I had been below Chattanooga and captured and 
held several da3's a prisoner by rebel scouts; and, my God, Captain," 
exclaimed Wade, "you should have seen the color come and go in 
Mamie's sweet face. She said not a word, and soon recovering 
herself, drank a little tea, and turning to see that I followed her with 
my eyes, she went out. 

•'I soon discovered an opportunity to confer with her alone. She 
was now as eager to hear as she had been persistent, for two da}'s, in 
avoiding me. I was shunned, I now know, simply because I am your 
public enemy; she sought me because I am your personal friend." 

'• I think," I said, "you can always trust me as your friend." 

"I repeated to Mamie what you said, telling her that whenever she 
wished to return to her home in Georgia, I would see her safely restored 
to her fiither's care. 



66 FAGOTS FROM THE CAMP FIRE. 

" 'Oh! ' she said, 'my poor father was ah-eady no more, and I did 
not know it, when I met the Captain beneath the stars and by moon- 
light, and danced with him so joyously on the hill-side beyond the 
Tennessee. My brother is in the Union army, a lieutenant in 
Colonel Cliff's regiment, and my poor mother is alone at the farm 
below Chattanooga. I must go to her and then I will be nearer' — 

"She stopped; looked furtively in my face. I was watching and 
listening. She was instantly silent and her cheeks Avere redder than 
before. We were seated in a vine-clad summer house. Mamie turned 
away to hide her blushes among the rose leaves. When spring-time 
comes no bud will blossom there more bright or beautiful or sinless 
than the faultless girl you love. I am going, if you will trust me, 
because I now love Mamie as my own child, to see Mamie's mother, 
and with her assent, the poor child's wishes shall be executed. Her 
wretchedness, when she spoke of her mother's solitude, was measure- 
less. Her cousins said she 'was always crying and always deploring 
the impossibility of reaching her own home.' 

."But Mamie's mother doesn't know me. 1 must see her, with this 
letter from Mamie." 

I could not help taking it, and would have kissed it, if Mr. Wade 
had not been looking at me. 

"Certainly," I said, "I will see that you pass safely below our lines. 
General Cleburne, when I tell him what I want, will get a paper from 
head-quarters that will enable you to serve Mamie." 

I sent a courier that night with dispatches to General Cleburne's 
head-quarters, telling him, among other things, that I wanted "a pass 
through the lines for Mr. Wade and for a rebel Georgia girl whom I 
loved." 

Wade, the noted bushwhacker, slept that night beside my camp 
fire and beneath my blankets. He ate and drank with us and I am 
sure there was never a more reckless, thoughtless, joyous body of men, 
in either army than they who followed my fortunes and sought by 
every means to please the excellent bushwhacker. He was much 
older than any of us, had been a godly country pedagogue, but had 
acquired many soldierly tastes and habits. He could drink mountain- 
eers' whiskey, told capital stories, and was an adept in Schenck's 
game of poker. 

On the third day after his departure the courier returned with 
needful instructions and orders, and with the passport for Mr. Wade 
and Mamie Hughes. 

I was perfectly blest. 



CHAPTER X. 



A Fat aiiJ Enthusiastic Widow. — General Sherman makes an Heroic Speech and 
buys a Turkey. — The Pedagogue moralizes. — Terrible Condition of East Ten- 
nessee. — Effects of the War on the South. — Demagogues. — Landon C. Haines' 
Father. 

When the passports were delivered by the courier, I called the 
bushwhacker and pedagogue and silently gave him the papers. I was 
dreaming of the day when I would meet Mamie Hughes, and was 
never conscious of keener delight than that given by my interview,, 
as narrated in preceding pages, with the scholarly, modest, earnest 
bushwhacker. He read my heart and was silent, that I might dream 
uninterruptedly. Blissful visions were conjured up by the pedagogue's 
simple recitals. His pictures were exact copies of those my fancy had 
already etched a thousand times upon the clear blue sky when 
])roximity of danger repelled sleep, and when I watched the stars, or 
discovered in white clouds, gorgeously gilded by moonbeams in 
this transparent atmosphere, tlie fancied outlines of Mamie's sweet 
face and matchless form. 

I was still dreaming when the bushwhacker said : 

" I saw General Sherman last Monday. He was visiting his out- 
posts and inspecting his forces at Sweetwater and other points. I was 
at a fat and loyal widow's house on the roadside when he and his staff 
were passing. A soldier galloped by exclaiming : 

" 'General Sherman is coming ! ' 

"I went to the door, but the widow almost ran over me. She 
rushed out into the midst of the highway, and there she stood bare- 
headed, her red, fat face shining, as if oiled, in the brilliant sunlight,. 
her bosom filled by 'two churns,' as she mildly described them when 
fattening her twins,, her body thrown back and arms akimbo. She 
stood with a protuberant avoirdupois of two hundred pounds squarely 



€8 FAGOTS FRC)?^I THE CAMP FIRE. 

and firmly in the midst of the highway. The foremost of the horse- 
men asked her : 

*•' 'What can we do for you, madam? Why do }-ou block up 
the road ? ' 

'' ' I want to see Gineral Sherman,' was her firm answer. 

"Another officer came up asking, 'What do you want madam?' 

•'' 'Fm bound to see the Gineral,' was the sturdy response. 

■" ' I am his chief of staff, madam. Can't I serve you. and will you 
:n'OT be good enough to leave the road that we ma}- pass?' 

*'*' Fm bound to see Gineral Sherman,' persisted the good dame. 
Tlie front of her dress was apparently quite a foot shorter than the rear 
that hardly touched the ground as she stood bending backwards with 
naked arms akimbo, looking up and eagerly scanning the face of each 
liorseman. Fler circumference, described by a cotton string around 
her bodv — she had no waist — must have been five feet. Of course the 
highway was effectively clo.sed. 

"The General rode up asking, when the obstruction to his progress 
.had been described by an aide-de-camp : 

" ' ^^'hat can I do for you. madam?' 

" ' Is you the Crineral?' 

^' ' I am. How can I serve you?' he reijlied. 

"She walked up, and standing beside the General's horse, held the 
bridle reins and began : 

" ' You see. ( rineral, my old man and the three boys is in your army 
afightin' agin Jeff Davis and for the old flag. I'm here a lone widder 
with the two gals and the two twins, makin' a honest livin', I am ; and 
Iv ! and behold, Gineral, a lot of your soldiers keeps acomin' to see my 
darters, Susan Ann and Maryer Jane, and acourtin' around here of 
nights, and every time enny of 'em comes they tote away a turkey 
or two tell I haint but one fat gobbler left. I've lost nigh onto 
fifty turke}-s, Gineral, and I'm ruinated and I don't know what's 
to become of me and the gals and the two twins at these innercent 
breasts. ' 

"Here the good dame lifted up the lower end of her strij^ed, 
homespun apron and wiped first one and then the other greasy, red eye. 

"The (reneral was evidently deeply affected. Natural nervous impa- 
tience had been heightened by the endless multiplicity of just such 
complaints as this preferred by the fat dame before him. He was dis- 
gusted, even furious. 

"He straightened himself up, raised his plumed hat. stood in his 
ijtirrups, and said: 

" 'Look at me, madam 1 Listen while I speak! In your presence 
-and in that of these valiant men and of the bended heavens, madam, 
I here swear and ])ledge myself to crush out the Great Rebellion if it 
<X)Sts every damned turkey gobbler south of the Ohio ! 1 ' 

"The (ieneral's manner was eminently and grandly theatrical, 
solemn, and imposing. 

"The woman, with earnest, inquiring gaze, stared wonderingly for 



FAGOTS FROM THE CAMP FIRE. 69 

a moment at tlie (xeneral, and comprehending at last the trifling char- 
acter of her sacrifices, said, as she slowly released the bridle rein : 

" 'Gineral, I have a fat gobbler left. It is your'n. Wait tell I go 
and fetch him.' 

" 'With all my heart I thank you,' was the General's respon.se, and 
as he rode away, I heard the long, loud laughter of the rollicking staff. 
One of them thoughtfully remained to get the turkey, for which the 
courtesying dame, with eyes full of oily gratitude, accepted a five- 
dollar greenback sent by the General. 

"East Tennessee," continued the pedagogue, "is in a terrible 
condition. The people are preyed upon by both armies aiid i))- 
banded thieves and highwaymen that belong to neither. The morals 
of the peojjle are affected by these facts. The seat of war is the scene 
of vice as well as suffering. I think many years must elapse, and a 
new generation of men and women come upon the stage, before the 
South can be restored to its original condition. The worst products 
of the war will remain here ; the best return to their homes beyond the 
Ohio. Poverty and vice and illiteracy will be dominant for many 
years, and I dread peace as much as I al)hor war. There is no future 
in the South for men of my age, habits, tastes, and training. Dema- 
gogues, of the revolutionary, violent sort, will win ignorant popular 
favor ; and prejudices and hates of this lawless period will shape 
results of popular elections. Discord, violence, and vendettas will 
brood fatefully over this haple.ss land. 

" I was infinitely amused, not long ago, by a little incident illus- 
trative of what I have been saying. You know my school was broken 
up, my home and books were burned, and I was thrust into prison at 
Knoxville. For what, I never knew. 1 was furious, and swore 
vengeance, and was wreaking it right and left when I fell under the 
influence of your generosity and of the tender, filial confidence and 
affection and marvelous beauty of Mamie Hughes. 

" The story I would tell is simply this. It illustrates my lugul)rious- 
philosophy, showing the tendency to evil of every incident of hateful, 
vicious, red-handed war. One of the richest citizens of Carter County. 
in Tennessee, is David Haines. His son, Landon C, is a brilliant, 
facile talker, a lawyer of ability and pronounced success, and a violent. 
original, "blood-drinking secessionist," so called in allusion to the 
fact that political i)rophets used to tell the "submissionists," or Union 
men, as you remember, that they, the prophets, would drink all the 
blood to be shed in any war that would follow secession. Landon C, 
the .son, is now a member of the Confederate Senate, at Richmond- 
Then, too, the fortunate Mr. Haines, pere, has a son-in-law in the 
person of Hon. Xat G. Taylor, the old Whig congressman and elo- 
quent Unionist. 

" Thus, you will observe, the elder Haines is braced up by a pair of 
capable defenders in the son and son-in-law. Therefore, when Fed- 
eral soldiers came plundering and seizing wagons, horses, and supplies 
of every description, as is their wont in Carter County, Haines, senior. 



70 FAGOTS FROM THE CAMP FIRE. 

announces the fact that his son-in-law, the congressman and preacher 
and orator, Taylor, has promised him ample protection and that his 
property shall not be molested. Taylor's name is potent among 
Union men. 

"When Confederate guerrillas come dashing over the hills and 
hollows of Carter, robbing barn-yards and stables and smoke-houses, 
then the paternal Haines, with earnest, illiterate eloc[uence, his white 
locks streaming in the wind, tells that he is the father of the great 
Confederate senator, Landon C. Haines, and that Landon made Jeff 
Davis promise him immunity from these exactions levied by Confed- 
erate soldiers. The re.sult has been that pater-familias Haines, until 
recently, has been effectually guarded by the son-in-law against 
Federal, and by the son against Confederate bandits. About two 
weeks ago a squad of bushwhackers made a descent upon the old 
gentleman's pretty farm, and were about to desolate it. He came out 
and scanned their trappings closely. They gave no sign, but were 
badly appareled and armed, each man to suit his fancy. Mr. Haines 
concluded they were "rebels." He began his usual pretty little 
eulogium upon 'my elotjuent, high-larnt son, Landon C, is a member 
•of the Confederate States Senate, in Richmond, and he made Jeff 
Davis promise,' etc. The wicked bushwhackers would hear no more. 

" 'Come, boys, help yourselves,' exclaimed their leader; 'this is 

the d d old daddy of that howling fire-plug of hell, Landon C. 

Haines. Clean out the d- d old rascal.' 

"Nothing visible was left. Mr. Haines loves money for its own 
sake. He was almost paralyzed by the blow. I did pity his sorrows. 

"A few days later another squad of thieving soldiers came by. 
They bore no flag or other distingtiishing marks of 'nationality.' 
They rode through the gate and up to the door. Mr. Haines sat 
there, eyeing them intently. He could not tell whether his unwel- 
come visitors were northern or southern. 

"'Tell me,' said the leader of the squad, after some trifling- 
conversation, 'are you LT^nion or rebel?' 

"Mr. Haines, staring vacantly at his questioner, was silent for a 
moment, and then said very slowly : 

" 'I'm jess nuthin, and sense I come to think about it, I'm d d 

little of that.' 

"The soldier was so amused — Mr. Haines is an illiterate old gentle- 
man — that he laughingly ordered his men to 'feed their horses and let 
the old man alone.' " 



CHAPTER XL 



Within the Federal Lines. — Friendly Negroes. — Pursued by Federal Cavalry. — An 
Unequal Race for Life. — Fighting, Freezing, and Feasting. — Cold Water Bap- 
tism. — Exhaustion. — An Imposing Spectacle. — A Friendly Proposition. — In 
Search of Comfort. — Baked "'Possum and Taters." — Welcome Repose. — Poor 
Whites. — Elisha Short's (Opinions. — The Sun Rises. — Arduous Tasks. — General 
Joseph E. Johnston and the Scouts. — A Scout's Mode of Life. — The General 
listens to a Love Story. 

Next morning after the grand "international" ball in La Fayette 
the Federal cavalry set out to return to Chattanooga. 

At the same time, my diminutive force, accompanied some distance 
by the East Tennessee shoolmaster who had agreed to do no further 
military service, moved toward Ringgold Gap. 

Late in the afternoon we were moving leisurely through the woods 
two miles west from the town, Ringgold, when suddenly startled by 
the appearance, not far away, of a force of Federal mounted men. 
Ambulances followed them and we were amazed to discover, after a 
hasty reconnaissance, that this very calvacade left La Fayette when 
we did. In truth, it was the women's escort that pretended to leave 
for Chattanooga. It then occurred to us that the purpose of the 
Colonel leading the force was to take advantage o^ the flag of truce 
to gather information. Secreting ourselves by the roadside till the 
ambulances went by, we moved rapidly to the high hills just west of 
the town of Ringgold. Satisfied that wrongful advantage was sought 
to be taken of the flag of truce, we proposed, soon after night-fall, to 
"stampede" the horses of the cavalry and ambulances and at least 
com]Del the cunning Ohio colonel to return to Chattanooga on foot. 
"We watched the movements of the escort closely, and disposition of 
their horses. 

The sun was going down and had just become invisible. Sitting 



72 FAGOTS FROM THE CAMP FIRE. 

on a fallen tree,, smoking a cob-pipe, some little distance from my 
men, I was startled by the approach of two I-nion soldiers — infantry 
men — walking leisurely toward the spot where my men were lounging 
on their blankets. I advanced on the unexpected intruders and 
ordered them to halt. They failed to obey, but turned back. I 
called to Spratling or Lewis for a gun. The latter ran to me saying, 
in a whisper, "For God's sake, Captain, don't shoot. There is a 
brigade of Federal infantry just over the hill, there ! " 

There was no time to be lost. The two Union soldiers had not 
reached the top of the hill, going to their brigade, just below on the 
other side, when we were in full flight in the opposite direction. 
There were half a dozen Federal pickets, now discovered for the first 
time, between us and the bridge across the creek at the foot of the 
hill west of Ringgold. 

It was now growing dark, and as my men wore Federal overcoats 
we slackened our speed thinking that we would be deemed stragglers 
and suffered to pass without molestation. _ If not, there were thirteen 
bullets for not more than five or six lazy-looking German sentinels. 
I passed within five paces of one of these. He simply grunted, when 
he looked at me, and I heard him mutter: 

' ' Tarn straeghlers ! ' ' 

AVe were now wdthin the Federal lines and almost in the midst of 
the enemy's encampment. I was never environed by such dangers, 
and never, when potent causes for gravest apprehensions were dis- 
covered, have I confessed, as on this clear, bright wintry night, a 
keener sense of genuine anxiety and even of alarm. Camp fires 
began to blaze everywhere. A division or corps of the Union army 
had evidently just reached the jjlace and was bivouacking for the 
night. 

Soldiers who were at Ringgold will remember the long-framed 
house, with its portico and rose vines, at the west end of the bridge 
across the deep creek. In the rear of this house was the kitchen and 
back of that was the smoke-house; behind this was the orchard, and 
then the open farm occupied the valley, extending nearly a mile to 
the base of the lofty wooded hills. The deep creek winds about 
through the farm in every conceivable direction. The owner of the 
place, a rebel, had left it in charge of an old colored servant and his 
wife. I had often stopped at the place and the good colored dame 
and her husband knew me well. She addressed me as "sonny," and 
I was accustomed to praise " INIammy's" ash-cake.s — corn-cakes roasted 
in hot ashes — and buttermilk. I was hurrying to "Uncle Mose" and 
"Mammy" for information and that I might have their advice and 
assistance. Fortunate were we in first seeking the negroes' aid. "The 
'big house' " — a designation commonly applied by negroes to the 
master's residence — "is chuck full of Yankees," said old Mose, after 
staring wildly at me for a moment. 

"In the name of gorramity what you doin' yere, Marse Jim?" 
whispered ' ' Mammy. ' ' 



FAGOTS FROM THE CAMP FIRE. 



73 



Her eyes protruded from her head till I could have knocked them 
out with a board brought down edgewise perpendicularly. By the 
bright fire-light I could discover that her sooty face had assumed an 
ashen hue. She spoke in a hoarse whisper. 

"Marse Jim," .said the old man, "dar war some Yanks here yis- 
tiddy, de fust dat cum. Dey knode you and I said dey had you onct 
and dat you fooled 'em and got clean away wid 'em. Dey said dey 
was gwine to hang you and Marse Nooe dar. Dat's what skeers dis 
niggah. You must git cleer away." 

"Show me the road to the mountains at once. We can't talk 
now," and old Mose led the way to the rear of the smoke-house, and 
pointing across the creek and farm, told me to go. 

Pressing the hard hand of the old negro and telling him to say to 
"Mammy" that I would soon see her again, I leaped the fence, my 
men following, and we ran at the top of our speed toward the creek. 
Signal guns were firing and drums beating an alarm. We could hear 
the rattling of arms and movements of horses. The moon was up, and 
in the cloudless sky, diffused the light of day about us. We had 
emerged from the little orchard and gone two hundred yards in the 
open field, each of us exerting himself to the utmost, when we beard 
cavalrymen swearing, and tearing down the fence behind us. Before 
they entered the field, we reached the creek, five feet deep, and its 
banks eight or ten feet high. We never hesitated or looked to the right or 
left. Leaping in, we were immersed to the armpits. The shock, heated 
as we were by terrible exertion, almost paralyzed us. The night was 
bitterly cold, and words can never describe the unutterable anguish 
we experienced when, slowly scrambling up the bank with limbs 
hardly obeying volition, we began again the unequal race for life. 

Thirty or more horsemen were in close pursuit. When they came 
to the stream, the shadows of moonlight may have exaggerated 
its depth. They halted and then rode up the stream to find a crossing 
place. Meanwhile we were recovering our capacity for flight and 
moved rapidly. The cavalrymen fired a harmless volley at us, and 
then shouting triumphantly because a good ford was discovered, they 
came rushing across the level field. They were within one hundred 
yards when we again plunged into the creek; and within fifty yards, 
again did we cross it, and again our pursuers swore furiously, and 
fired wildly at us, and rode madly up and down the creek to discover 
a crossing place. 

Our enemies were now scattered. Five or six — probably more — 
crossed the stream ahead of the rest, and as we were almost out of the 
clearing and just as we entered the woods, these eager horsemen rode 
rapidly to prevent our access to a place of security. Spratling and I 
had taken the lead in this furious flight. He was strongest and I 
most agile of the scouts. As the horsemen began the ascent of the 
declivity, we stopped that our whole force might encounter the 
approaching pursuers. Nooe and the rest soon stood by us in the 
.shadow of a few trees. The reckless riders came within thirty paces 



74 FAGOTS FROM THE CAMP FIRE. 

when we fired. I don't think one of those gallant, excited riders 
escaped unharmed. But we did not wait to see. We were not sure 
even then that the pursuit would be abandoned and therefore hurried 
through the forest up the ascent. 

Utterly, helplessly exhausted, we rested at last on the mountain's 
summit. Weary beyond measure, our clothing frozen, and fearing, 
if we kindled fires, that pursuit would be renewed, we were reduced to 
the last extremity of suffering. We looked down upon endless lines of 
Federal camp fires and listened to musket firing about Murdock's 
Mills, south of Ringgold Gap, in the direction of Tunnel Hill. The 
configuration of endless lines of armed men could be defined by means 
of steady flashes of musketry and occasional explosions of field 
artillery. It was a splendid exhibition, but physical anguish rendered 
enjoyment of the dazzling, imposing spectacle, impossible. 

In desperate straits men think rapidly. How absurd, I reflected 
even then, had been my threat addressed to the two Federal stragglers 
an hour or two ago ! how insane my vengeful little plan for the pun- 
ishment of the flag-of-truce escort for its detour made, as I had 
supposed, to gather information ! The Ohio Colonel knew more than 
I when he moved his cavalcade into the encampment of Palmer's 
Corps, sent to Ringgold Gap to compel the return of Cleburne's 
division suddenly ordered to Mississippi to arrest the march of a 
Union force across that state. Palmer's object was accomplished. 
As I learned later, Cleburne was even that night turning backward 
from Mobile and Meridian towards Atlanta and Dalton. 

Cold, icy winds swept over the mountain top in freezing, fitful 
gusts. When we moved, our ice-incrusted clothes crackled, while our 
bodies had been superheated by this desperate flight and toilsome 
ascent. We were absolutel}- freezing to death. One of my men said, 
his lips trembling and teeth chattering: 

"Boys, its a pity we hatln't surrendered. The devil will get us 
anyhow." 

We were forced to have a fire ; but there was not a match that 
could be ignited. We had been too often baptised. Fortu ately 
our cartridges were waterproof. 

Just then Nooe discovered the glare of a fitful light down the 
mountain-side. Kendrick and I proposed to go in a body and cai)ture 
those who enjoyed the warmth of the blazing fagots or die in the 
assault. 

Nooe said "it were wiser if only one or two went forward. If 
these find everything right, they can whistle and the rest will join 
them. As you two proposed that all should venture to the spot, it is 
proper that you two should go forward." 

I pressed Kendrick's foot with mine that he might be silent, and 
assented to Nooe's plans. If there were no danger, I was to whistle 
like a partridge and my comrades would come to me at once. If we 
fell into the clutches of bushwhackers, of course we would die and 
make no sisrn. 



FAGOTS FROM THE CAMP FIRE. 75 

"Kendrick," I said, as soon as we left the scouts, "if we find 
everything comfortable, let us be silent and punish the boys for 
sending us helpless into hidden danger like this." 

"Agreed," answered Kendrick, while we trudged along, ice-clad, 
our very bones shivering and freezing, down the steep declivity. 

Reckless because of mortal suffering, we looked eagerly through 
crevices in the walls of a log hut and beheld a rudely clad country 
jade lighting an oven from a log-heap fire on the broad hearth. 
What spasms of hunger suddenly attacked me! I caught the fumes of 
the baking opossum. Kendrick hastily knocked at the closed door. 
I was still watching the woman. She dropped the pot-hooks upon 
the oven lid and turning toward the door, asked, in a sharp, shrill, 
husky voice : 

"Who's dat?" 

"Madam," I answered, "we are two starving men. We will give 
you a silver dollar for that 'possum and potatoes. Let us in. We 
will not harm you. We are freezing." 

Slowly and doubtingly the ignorant creature removed the bar across 
the shutter and we entered, paid the woman the stipulated price, and 
in less than five minutes had devoured the opossum. No more 
delicious food ever delighted a hungry, weary, freezing soldier than 
this siimuiiiin bomim of African luxuries — "baked 'i)0ssum and 
roasted sweet 'taters." But negroes are not singular in appreciation 
of this choicest southern luxury, that most abounds where persimmon 
trees flourish. When United States Senator Garland of Arkansas was 
asked by an eastern gormand how an opossum should be cooked, he 
answered : 

"The bent of my mind is that if you would boil the 'possum in 
salt and pepper water until it is quite tender, and then brown it well 
in an old-fashioned oven, or skillet, wherein around its body a goodly 
number of potatoes are baked and browned, you would have a dish 
unrivaled, and more than Oriental, and a person who could not 
relish it, whether he took the 'possum hot or cold, would have no 
celestial fire or music in his soul." As to whether the 'possum is best 
eaten hot or cold, the Senator confessed his inability to decide. 
"Rather than miss it entirely," he added, "I would try to eat it in 
any way I could find it, and really I am of the opinion that it is 
best hot or cold, according to the state it is in when I last partake 
of it." 

A daintier dish was never set before a king, and no sybarite ever 
enjoyed the costly viands of Lucullus'^ table as did we this baked 
opossum and potatoes. 

We had hardly dispatched the grateful repast when we heard the 
footsteps of our comrades. They could endure mortal anguish no 
longer and came to share our unknown fate. We asked them to 
enter, telling the woman that she was safe and should be well 
rewarded for her kindness. The poor creature, staring stupidly and 
helplessly in my face, shrank, with a small yellow mop in her mouth, 



76 FAGOTS FROM THE CAMP FIRE. 

into the corner, and soon slept. Kendrick and I were well pleased 
to tell of the feast that had been spread for us. 

"You sent us alone," I said, "to prison or death. We avenged 
the wrong by leaving you to freeze while we feasted." 

We filled the fire-place with blazing logs, and Kendrick and I agreed 
to take the first watch. The boys drew lots to determine who 
should succeed us at midnight, and very soon profound rest dissipated 
every memory of the surprises, hopes, excitement, and keen anxiety of 
the memorable day and night at Ringgold Gap. 

Our breakfast next morning was a reproduction of the supper of 
the preceding night. The good dame was surely objectionable as 
a cook. She was the ignorant wido\v of one of those ignorant, 
stupid fellows who are caressed and flattered by "great, good men," 
so called, and induced to become food for powder. The lackadaisical, 
yellow creature, with streaks of yellowish snuff trickling from a filthy 
mop in her mouth, said "she had heern he was kilt sumwhars in ole 
Ferginny. " 

She sniffled a little, and taking more snuff on the mop, filled her 
stained, yellow mouth and wiping supposed tears, v^ith the corner of 
her greasy, homespun apron, proceeded with melancholy slothfulness 
to fry thick flitches of bacon and thinly sliced sweet potatoes, and 
bake corn-bread, and boil coffee. 

Nine-tenths of the people of the Gulf States were preparing at this 
selfsame moment just such breakfasts of these selfsame simple 
materials. Our hostess was only peculiarly blest in having coffee 
furnished from the haversack of one of my comrades. Further south, 
rice constituted as in India, breakfasts, dinners, and suppers of an 
agricultural people cut off from commercial intercourse with all 
nations. 

In the early summer of 1S63, I descended the Tennessee River in a 
skiff with Major Hornor, of Helena, Arkansas, from Chattanooga to 
Decatur, Alabama, and thence crossed the country on foot from 
Decatur to Birmingham, known as Elyton, a wretched little village, 
and thence I went to Columbus, Mississippi. Even then there was 
neither sugar nor coffee, and only bacon and corn-bread, on the tables 
of the rural districts. The people of Northern and Central Alabama 
suffered most. They had the least possible communication with the 
exterior world. The women were appareled in the coarsest cotton 
fabrics, woven on rude domestic looms and spun on hand wheels, such 
as are only to be found to-day in collections of curious bric-a-hrac. 
Salt, even at the period designated, could not be bought by the 
indigent population, and when a hog or beef was slaughtered, the 
people of each vicinage assembled and each took away a share that the 
whole might be used before decomposition began. These poverty- 
stricken districts were solidly democratic. They had been first 
for war, and only very old men, women, children and deserters 
occupied this broad district. Pitiful to the last degree was the 



FAGOTS FROM THE CAMP FIRE. 77 

condition of the country with its starving, rudely clad mothers and 
abandoned wi\-es and yellow-legged, unwashed, unkempt, unattended 
children. 

I spent the night with an old man, Elisha Short, in a district of 
Pickens County, Alabama, known as Bunkum. I gave him ten dollars 
in Confederate currency to kill a kid. I had a little salt and we fared 
sumptuously, having milk and corn-bread. Mr. Short seemed to think 
the condition of the country somewhat changed, but had no definite 
idea of the cause of calamities that befell him and his neighbors. He 
had been told, as he said to me, that "a feller named Abe Linkhorn 
had raised hell sumhows and was ruinatin' things, but he didn't 
know for certain." He had "heern of a feller what was a speakin' 
round for Kongris or sun thin' tellen the peepil to secesh and he heern 
th6y had seceshed and it looks like a hell of a biznessat this particular 
time. Thar's sunthin' about the nigger in it, but as we-uns haven't 
got any niggers, we don't know much about it. Everyboddy is 
Demmycrats in these yere parts, end of course we could get salt and 
things ef it wasn't for them Whigs and Abbylisherners." 

These, substantially, were the words and sentences of the good 
old man who stammered fearfully. He had been falsely educated by 
party leaders and believed, till the day of his death, if he lives no 
longer, that Lincoln was the author of all the woes that befell the 
South. 

The air was clear, sky cloudless, and sun shone brightly upon house- 
tops in the valley. Blue, sjiiral columns of smoke ascended, like 
incense, toward heaven, from chimneys of cottages, in the beautiful 
valley below, when we discovered, with a field-glass, that there were 
no Federal soldiers on the south side of the mountain. Ascending 
to the summit we beheld long blue lines of soldiers, like endless 
serpents, winding steadily and curving with the roads over the hills 
and along the valley toward Chattanooga. Palmer's spies and scouts 
had informed him that Cleburne was ordered back from Meridian, 
Mississippi, and Palmer, his object accomplished, was returning to his 
original position. We followed him a few miles to gather in stragglers 
and secure newspapers and possible valuable information. 

Our purpose accomplished, we went to Tunnel Hill. Here we 
rested for a few days; in the meantime were ordered to report for 
active service to General B. J. Flill, Provost Marshal General of 
General Joseph E. Johnston's army. 

We served General Cleburne no more. 

From this time forth our toils and dangers, as we well knew, would 
be incessant. General Joseph E. Johnston, among his soldiers, was 
supposed to be omniscient. On the track of one there always followed 
another scout, to verify or correct statements made by the first. It 
was impossible to mislead the General, and nothing was surer to send 
a scout to service in the ranks than any exaggeration of the importance 
or number or value of facts he had ascertained. Most soldiers 



78 FAGOTS FROM THE CAMP FIRE. 

engaged in this business reported too much. They saw too much ; 
they risked too much ; they triumphed over insuperable obstacles and 
achieved results that the wily commander knew to be utterly impos- 
sible. I do not think that General Johnston was ever fatally misled. 
I was often amazed because of his possession of information which I 
thought nobody besides myself could give. Therefore, I never reported 
inferences for facts, and never anything that I did not know to be 
absolutely true. He was never unreasonable and never exacted 
impossi-bilities. I was ordered, when I made my first exit from our 
lines, to enter those of the enemy and report their strength at a given 
point. After earnest efforts to pass the Federal pickets during three 
successive nights, I returned at the time fixed, to General Johnston's 
head-quarters ; and when I said I could not get through and gave the 
reasons, the General thanked me and at once sent me on a more 
dangerous mission. 

It is not always possible for a scout to discover the disposition or 
strength of the enemy's troops. Patient watchfulness and slow, 
tedious movements along deep gullies and under the shadow of fences, 
crawling through briers and under-brush and crouching low when 
watchful sentinels grow restive, are least painful and tedious of tasks 
executed by scouts. 

I am satisfied that the mere proximity of an unsuspected scout affects, 
unconsciously, the nerves of a sentinel. Of course the poor fellow 
does not know that, if discovered, I am ready to kill him. He 
can not be conscious of unseen dangers, but surely recognizes 
unconsciously the presence of fate impending. He begins to move as 
the scout draws nigh. The slightest sound made by a broken twig 
beneath my knees and hands, as I would creep silently by, would 
make the drowsy watcher start violently. Peering about him for a 
time into the darkness, he would again resimie his ceaseless, steady 
march. Why, otherwise, do sentinels, when the stealthy, noiseless 
scout approaches, at once become silent ? The melody that was 
chanted in low, soft tones while the sentinel was dreaming of the 
pretty girl that sang it at her own northern fireside, when at length I 
can almost see the color of his eyes, is heard no more, I have 
never drawn near enough to one of these watching, and therefore, 
nervously excited sentinels that I was not sure that he was told by 
some invisible scheme of telegraphy of my presence, of my purpose, 
and of imminent dangers that beset him. He whistled no more ; his 
lowly uttered song that he was humming was silenced ; and he was 
conscious surely of vague apprehensions of undiscoverable danger. In 
my inmost heart I have pitied an unhappy sentinel exposed to dangers 
he never measured and moved, by an instinct he did not compre- 
hend, to tremble when he did not know that a bullet would pierce his 
brain at the very instant he discovered me. But the sentinel's death 
was no more painful to him than the mode and fact of taking his life 
were alike hateful to me. He would surely have killed me ; therefore, 
I slew him. For all that, the necessity and the fact were alike horrible. 



FAGOTS FROM THE CAMP FIRE. 79 

Henceforth we were to go on foot in pairs. We were to move b}" 
day and night. We were to live between the picket lines of the two 
armies. We were to deal with spies and scouts and bushwhackers and 
loyalists. Whatever the hour at which we reached our lines to make 
our reports, we were arrested and taken under guard to the provost 
marshal of the army and thence to General Johnston's head-quarters. 
It happened on one occasion that one of my comrades was shot and 
killed, and his passports were secured by bushwhackers. I came 
immediately to head-quarters and reported the fact. Instantly Gen- 
eral Johnston revoked all permits to pass the lines and every one 
seeking to enter was put under guard and sent to the provost marshal. 
We captured five men with forged copies of the dead scout's papers 
within our lines. They were all shot by decree of a drum-head court- 
martial. I was amazed to learn the next day, from a Yankee scout I 
captured, that he knew the fate of the five unhappy men who attempted 
to use copies of the passport that l)elonged to my dead comrade. He 
said : 

"Your General Johnston is a wary old fo.x. We thought we had a 
safe and sure means of ingress and egress through your lines when we 
secured perfect fac similes of the paper signed by General Johnston 
himself. By his instant revocation of all passports, and thus, the 
capture and examination at head-cjuarters of all persons entering your 
lines, five ardent bushwhackers lost their lives." 

Our picket lines were quite nine miles from Dalton, and many 
nights, walking this distance when the whole army slept, have I 
wished that I were reduced to the ranks. Weary and footsore I 
trudged, buoyed up by the hope that the intelligence I bore would 
serve or save the Confederate army. There was, however, a degree 
of fascination in risks constantly hazarded, and in this life of constant 
excitement, that made it inexpressibly fascinating. 

Then, too, I was conscious that in the ranks, subjected to rigid 
discipline, and compelled to answer at roll-call, I could never achieve 
the leading purpose of my life, of which I dreamed day and night. 
The hour was drawing nigh when, if the good schoolmaster could 
execute his designs, I would meet Mamie Hughes and when, with her 
guide, she would be entrusted for a time to my guardianship. 

General Johnston, when giving me orders and instructions late at 
night, said : 

"You are the eyes and ears of my army." 
I answered : 

" My eyes will do perhaps, but I hope my ears are not big enough to 
Ijrovoke the suggestion." 

The General smiled good naturedly, and I said, — and I could not 
help blushing frightfully, — "General, I want to get a young lady 
through the lines to her mother's, below Tunnel Hill." 
" Is she of kin to you ? ' ' 
"No, sir." 
"What, then, is your reason for this evident anxiety on your part?" 



8o FAGOTS FROM THE CAMP FIRE. 

Turning away, that lie might not scan my face so intently with his 
keen, clear, kindly eyes, I said : 

"If you have a moment's leisure, General, I'll tell the whole story." 

His elbow rested upon the little, low, pine table before him, strewn 
with papers. His hand supjjorted his massive head, and while a 
smile, half incredulous and half sympathetic, pla\ed about his face, he 
listened to the story of my love. 

When I had recounted incidents of the dance by moonlight on the 
banks of the Tennessee and of our flight across Sequatchie Valley 
into the Cuml)erland Mountains, I told the story of the old scold and 
of her immersion by Spratling in the barrel-churn. The General 
could not contain himself, and forgetting, for the moment, the great 
burden of anxieties that weighed him down, he laughed till his sleep- 
ing staff aroused by the extraordinary incident, came to inquire what 
had hapjjened. 

I briefly told of the ex-bushwhacker Mr. Wade, and of the pass I 
wanted for him. M}- retpiests were granted with instructions to guide 
me for the ensuing week, when, saying, "1 will always be grateful, 
General," I tipped my cap and bowed myself, at two o'clock in the 
morning, out of his presence. 



CHAPTER XII. 



The Pedagogue Talks of Mamie Hughes. — Physical Wonders of East Tennessee. — 
Sequatchie Valley. — An Ancient Ocean. — Mamie Philosophizes. — The Negro as 
a Soldier. 

I had pa.ssed out of the lines, and with Spratling, awaited at the 
rendezvous, near La Fayette, the coming of Mr. Wade, the e.\-bush- 
Avhacker and pedagogue. He reached our encampment at ten o'clock 
on the day fixed for our meeting. When I greeted him, extending 
my right, I held up the left hand, proffering the passport of General 
Joseph E. Johnston. I am sure the generous, good man never 
confessed in eyes and face a keener pleasure. His life had been 
devoted to the service of others. He was now a homeless wanderer. 
Incapable of any ta.sk save such as life-long schoolmasters assume and 
deprived of the privilege of waging war against the Confederacy, he 
was even grateful for that of serving Mamie and myself, and infinitely 
grateful for the confidence repo.sed in his truthfulness, integrity, and 
courage. When I gave him the passport, he said he had seen Maniie's 
mother, delivered Mamie's letter, and after spending a day and night 
beneath the roof of Mamie's hospitable home, conceived it his duty to 
fulfill, speedily and faithfully, promises given the mother and daughter. 

"If not arrested and detained in the Federal lines at Charleston or 
its vicinity, I will meet you," he said, "three weeks hence at the old 
camping place near Tunnel Hill. I have no pass for Mamie granted 
by Cieneral Sherman's Provost Marshal, and if I find it difficult to 
secure or the task tedious, Mamie does not lack courage, and as a lad of 
fifteen years would gladly and naturall}' follow these gray hairs. I am so 
well known among the soldiers and officers at the Hiwassee bridge 
that I am sure I will encounter little hazard and that I can come south 
with Mamie having no other ' permit ' than that which I have been 
accustomed to use. The worst that can happen will be the return to 
Mamie's present home on the north side of the river. Then she 

6 



82 



FAG(3TS FROM THf] CAMP FIRE. 



^^^:\:f:sy .sir. i:^ iSr--- ^^"'^ 

worn bv the ocean wnvpc; far „,-, fU ^^p^ /^ii^ ana parallel hssures 

..arveio'us ^^Z^Z^"" ^.^Z^^r^'^ *=' '«dge in tl,is 
mighty sea, walled in on every I ana re 4,^,1 ' 'r"™f '?'^'°'->' "^ ^ 

i^ESSre::"^-^;;^^':^:^"'"---^^^^^^^^^^^^ 

tnrbnlent Tennessee I h-,1^ '^ j by niooni.glit on tile banl^s of the 

deep, broad ~an 1,^7 it'f b^f Tnd".' "°"" r""°"«'' "''^ 
frr>m TTo.-f ^T • '':'>-''L liver s DeQ, and am .sure I can e^riii^> 

base o" „i r"7 ',:;;°> ■z«'--''^[°"?"-'"=' " --"""fi •'- ™™''^-' 

to "-here the kinHK- n i ^ [ "'" ^° ''^' widowed mother and 
my face whfle I co 1^ ! ^^''^^"' '^''^'"''^ ''^"^ '°«'^^d furtively into 
mer y e^e -'to soo he her'To"'"^ '""/'^ ^"^^'"-^ ^^'■"piP- - ^-s 
her to withstand the fn'nT:, ''" <-ontinued, "would enable 
journey. ^''^^"'' ^^"^ ^^^"^^^^"^ '^'^ ^'^^ toilsome, tedious 

spirit; and consciot^^s S^'^^^,, ^ ^«^^^^^^^^ 

midefinable, delicious iov ThAl- ' ^^^?'''''^ ''^^"^y' ^^ ^n 

The atmosphere berjft of mo st, r.T"'" '°''''-' '"''^ "^"'"''^' ^^'"^1^»^^- 

crystalline^hat dL7^ e fa riv hal^' TT7 '" ^^■7"^' '""^^' ^' ^° 
of vision. The sun r^is in cln Hi ' ^'^^^^''^^l'^- ^^ lessen objects 
sea of golden .dory No shnJn /'', g°[-'^0"^^Ple'^dor and sets in a 
moon [; wafted b7nigI^tovfa7i'/v:'S^^ 7'' ''' ^'""'"^^ ^^•^^- ^h^ 

Ues rL^:/i«i'^-t3«s ^o ..^^^^^ 

bir.h'-""ll;;{,;;;;' ;'^:-- J T^^^' TenneLt*: l^l^of „,v 
oniy WISH to assure yo„ tliat you need have no fears. Mamie 



FAGOTS FROM THE CAMP FIRE. 83 

has been climbing the hills, rowing a boat, learning how to use a 
repeater, and riding horses for months. Recently her industry, since 
she proposed to make the journey on foot to Tunnel Hill, has been 
redoubled, and I am persuaded that, when she reaches this place, she 
will be eager to join in one of your hazardous incursions into the 
Federal lines. 

"And yet when 1 was leaving Mamie, she came and kissed my 
wrinkled brow and said that my face and conduct and the stories I 
told always inculcated the lesson which she had learned to lisp in 
childhood : 

" • Naked on parents' knees, a new-born chikl, 
Weeping thou sat'st when all around thee smiled. 
So live that, sinking to thy last long sleep. 
Thou then canst >mile while all around thee weep.' 

"She has perfect health, and if a Mohammedan, instead of a 
Christian, would be pronounced horribly fanatical. Of fear she never 
knew an emotion, and is only timidly modest. Dismiss all anxiety. 
She will meet you in three weeks at Tunnel Hill. I was reading to 
Mamie the verse which tells that 

" 'Brutes find out where their talents lie ; 

A bear will not attempt to i\y ; 

A foundered horse will oft debate, 

Before he tries a five-barred gate ; 

A dog by instinct turns aside, 

Who sees the ditch too deep and wide ; 

But man we find the only creature 

Who, led by folly, combats nature ; 

And when he loudly cries, forbear, 

With obstinacy fixes there ; 

And where his genius least inclines, 

Absurdly bends his whole designs.' 

"She looked uj) when I closed the little volume in which the stanza 
was pasted, and asked if I sought to convey a lesson for her to study. 

" 'Do I propose,' she asked, ' "to combat nature" when I would 
ride the most unmanageable horse? My sex cannot vote, and yet I 
read with keenest interest discussions of political questions. I am 
taxed ; I toil to add to public wealth ; and yet I must fill only the 
meanest places in industrial life. We are paid less than men for the 
same and better service in public schools. We are used as nurses, but 
reviled as physicians. Barbarous codes of one thousand years ago, 
enacted by opinion and custom when men were mere fighting brutes 
and shaped the blessed Common Law, still fix the position and define 
the rights of my sex. Kept in ignorance, the calamity repeats itself 
forever ; and womanly ignorance and weakness refuse to demand 
woman's emancipation. I never felt the burden of fetters I wear as a 
woman till I wished to assert myself and, guarding myself and defying 
danger, return to my home in Georgia. "Brutes," as the poet tells, 
"find out where their talents lie;" but women are not suffered to 



84 FAGOTS FROM THE CAMP FIRE. 

have talents. They can aspire to nothing higher or nobler or more 
useful than offices of washerwoman and housekeeper for despotic 
husbands who come home from ballot-boxes and public meetings for 
food we must cook and clothes we must cleanse. We are not even 
supposed to know why war rages or what you insane, selfish, wicked 
men are fighting about. My conviction is that the main cause of the 
measureless calamity is found in the fact that surfeited flies, feasting 
through forty }'ears upon public pap, have been brushed away that 
another swarm, starved through nearly half a century, ma)- prey upon 
the people. I have observed that every Federal office-holder ejected 
by Lincoln's ck-ction was instantly a howling, hooting secessionist. 
He set his neighbors, family, and friends in an uproar, and by sheer 
violence silenced opjjosition to the frenzied place-hunters. But isn't 
it singular that women, knowing nothing of cpiestions involved and 
the least possible of results to follow, are most violent and earnest 
partisans either of the South or of the North. I can't help it,' said 
Mamie, 'but I do wish we women were differently educated and 
reared with higher and nobler purposes, and imbued with nobler 
convictions and loftier aims than those now hedging in our unworthy 
aspirations. 

'■ 'When I was nearl)- fifteen years old, standing before the mirror at 
my sick mother's bedside, she was telling me of the terrors of this 
horrible inter-state war "precipitated by him who madly fired the gun 
at Sumter that set the continent aflame." " There are terrible days 
coming," said my mother. "Why do you weep?" I asked. Her 
answer was, "t>ecause you are not my son rather than my daughter." 
I, too, wejjt. And every tear we shed was illustrative of the terrors 
of a code whicli has fixed the status and defined a sphere of inferior 
action for my sex from the Dark Ages even to this good hour. We 
have become at last separate property holders. We can testify in 
courts. Wf are at last, as wives, separable in matters of property from 
the man. We could not enter literary colleges or medical schools, but 
nearly all these are open to us at last. We have found acce.ss to the 
pulpit and bar, and our worth and ei|ualit\- and keenness of perception 
and skill in art and in the professions are confessed. We are advanc- 
ing steadily and will l)e finally invested with every privilege of 
citizenshi]). The right will finally triumj)h, and mothers will weep 
no more that daughters are not sons.' 

"Such was the substance, captain," said the schoolmaster, "of 
Mamie's earnest, vigorous speech made to me as her audience. I was 
delighted, because I believe as she does ; and let me tell you, captain, 
that the exigencies of this war have stirred many an idle intellect to 
its profoundest depths. Even tliat little sweetheart of yours becomes 
a philosopher, dealing with questions of state-craft. She said to me 
one morning, and I don't understand it all yet, that the South pre- 
tended to fight because it couldn't take negroes to Kansas where 
nobody could or would have a slave, free labor being cheaper than 
that of slaves. Then she said : 



FAGOTS FROM THE CAMP FIRE. 85 

" 'Within a life-time, after slavery is no more, the South will never 
believe that it ever approved the institution, and he will be execrated 
who asserts that the South fought that Mr. Toombs might "call the 
roll of his slaves," as he prophesied, "on Bunker Hill," or even in 
Georgia. The negro, like my sex, has almost reached the proper 
period of preparation, and slow emancipation was coming, even if the 
bayonet had not intervened.' 

"General Cleburne," said Mr. Wade, "and the ablest officers in 
your army illustrate the force and accuracy of this girl's reasoning. 
Thev propose, even now, to convert slaves into soldiers, making 
faithful soldierly service the price of negro freedom. I am told that 
politicians who l)ecame generals, except Cleburne, oppose, but the 
greater number of officers and men approve the proposition. A 
soldier is only a breathing machine. One perfectly disciplined 
human creature is as valuable as another. Confessing this fact, 
soldiers of the South do not object to the imposition of a share of 
their toils and dangers upon these slaves. But Jefferson Davis, it is 
said, objects, and negroes may not be suffered, like other races, to 
fight for their own freedom. 



CHAPTER XIII. 



Spratling and Bessie Stanies. — The Pedagogue corrects a Chapter in the History of 
the War. — Who killed General John H. Morgan? — How he was Esteemed. — 
The Camp Fire. — The Newspaper Man and the Pedagogue. — A Political Dis- 
cussion. — Absurdties of Revolution. — The Two Nations and the Confederate 
War-Song. 

Spratling, I well knew, was anxious to revisit the home of Bessie 
Starnes, the pretty, black-eyed mountaineer's daughter, who half prom- 
ised and half refused to love him. It was part of my duty to learn 
whether the Federal army corps, encamped not far from Bessie's 
home, had changed its position. Spratling, advised of every order 
I was required to execute, gladly agreed to go alone and ascertain the 
facts, assuring me that Bessie would tell him everything that had 
occurred in that vicinity. 

"Oh! she is bright-eyed and cunning and silent," said Spratling. 
"She told me, when I was coming away, that she often learned what 
I was most anxious to know. Bessie listens intently when Federal 
officers breakfast with the pretty, black-eyed, laughter-loving moun- 
tain lassie. She asks how long they will remain where they are, 
'because she will be so idle and lonely when gallant men and officers 
leave the neighborhood.' She told me she would have a 'big lot of 
news to tell me' when I came back. Very many Union soldiers, of 
different Tennessee regiments, went from Bessie's neighborhood. 
These constantly revisit their homes and tell the seemingly careless, 
but curious girl all they know. She knows the strength of each 
Tennessee regiment and brigade, and who commands, and where they 
are encamped. She corresponds constantly with a young Georgian 
in Cliff's Tennessee 'loyal' regiment. The truth is, I think he is my 
rival; and if the fortunes of war so ordered, I would not not weep if 
his career were brief and brilliant. I have thought, when Bessie was 
gazing abstractedly in my face and when she was evidently measuring 



FAGOTS FROM THE CAMP FIRE. 87 

my virtues and worth, thi|||; she was weighing these against the admir- 
able qualities of heart and person that distinguish, as she told me, 
the young Georgian in the Union army. But despite her possible love 
for him, she will be true to me as a rebel. Her sympathies are wholly 
with the South." 

The gigantic Spratling soon left us, moving down the long slope of 
the rocky hill-side with an elasticity in his movements and healthful 
vigor in his gigantic body and limbs that compelled us to watch and 
admire, as he went bounding rapidly down the declivity. His foot- 
steps were hastened by anxiety to listen once more to the rich tones 
of Bessie's musical voice and gaze in the fathomless depths of her 
fascinating, brilliant eyes ; and perhaps he dreamed of dewy, pouting 
lips he had never kissed. 

When Spratling had disappeared, Mr. Wade said to me that he had 
a newspaper containing an absurd and inaccurate and untruthful 
account of the shooting of the Confederate raider. General John H. 
Morgan. 

"I was in Greenville when Gillem's command made its descent 
upon the place. Gillem himself did not know that Morgan was in 
the village. He was advised, which was true, that Morgan had gone 
to Abingdon, Virginia, to see his wife, who had just become a mother. 
But Morgan hastened back to Greenville, for reasons that became 
apparent when we secured his private and official papers, even the 
letters from his very passionately devoted wife. 

''Morgan made no secret of his purpose to attack Gillem. In fact 
he was reduced to the necessity of executing at once some brilliant 
-Stroke of heroism or of retiring in disgrace from the Confederate 
service. His exactions, levied alike upon friend and foe, and outrages, 
•practised even upon rebels or upon the wives and children of Con- 
federate soldiers, forced General Echols to order him to transfer his 
authority to his next in command. Morgan resolved to fight, and if 
possible, destroy Gillem, and thus win such eclat that Echols would be 
compelled to revoke this order. Unhappily for Morgan, he was 
induced to spend a night at the elegant home of his aide-de-camp, 
Major Williams, whose widowed mother resides in Greenville. Cards, 
wine, and most accomplished women — one of these, Miss N. N. Scott, 
a grandaughter of H. L. White, Andrew Jackson's great rival — made 
sleep, till a late hour, impossible. 

"About sunrise, Mrs. Williams, finding her home surrounded by 
East Tennessee Union soldiers led by Colonel John B. Brownlow and 
others, hurried to Morgan's room. She knocked. He awoke and 
came in his night clothes to learn that he must fly or be put to death. 

"'These men will not spare you,' she said. 'I hear them, even 
now, threatening to 'ourn m\' home. They have learned that you 
.are here.' 

"Mrs Williams told me all this," said Mr. Wade. 

"Morgan hastily drew on his pantaloons, and leaving his coat and 
vest, the former having on the collar the insignia of his rank, ran 



88 FACO'I'S I'kOM 'rUi:(AMI' IlKi;. 

down stairs ami tint through llic l>a(k iloortind down the high, broad 
ste])S that led iiuo a garden and vineyard in the rear of the building. 

"iVleanwhile, Major Williams, instead of following Morgan to the 
small, frame churc h under which Morgan proposed to conceal himself 
and thence escajje inlu du- woods not faraway, — the church was ([uite 
fifty or sixty yards from tin- residence, — took refuge under the steps 
which Morgan descended into the vineyard. A good-natured dog's 
family here had their bed of sticks and straw. Williams, almost 
.suffo( ated by the process, covered himself with the dog's bed, remain- 
ing there idl Un oi ile\tii o'clock, when the Union soldiers left the 
yard. Then hecr.iwled into an empty < isti'rn, and shuddered when 
a Union ^oldi^•r w.dkiil o\ir it, saying, as \\v lilitd the cover and 
looked down into the darkness, that he would 'get a scpiad to hre into 
that d d hole ; it may be half full of thieving Morgan's men.' 

'•' Williams deeming the place unhealtliy," continued the pe<lagogue, 
"( rept out and, entering the kitchen, was concealed by his 'black 
mamm\',' the fat ipieen of the kitchen, beneath the tloor. Meanwhile, 
Ihownlow's soldiers captured Captain Clay,* grandson of the mate h- 
less popular leader, Henry ("lay, of Kentuck)-. from him I learned 
many facts which I now recite. 

"Cieneral Morgan was seen, when a])|iroaching the rear of the 
chtu'ch, by one of (^olonel Hrownlow's men and forced to return 
towards Mrs. Williams' residence. lie h.;d retraced half the distance 
to the house and was in the little xineyard, the vines waist high, 
when Andrew Campbell, a pri\ate, on the outside of the enclosme, 
fired \ipon Morgan, who was moving rapidly. Morgan fell, dying 
instantly. Members of Mrs. Williams' household at once made the 
fact known to our soldiers that the great guerrilla was slain. Mean- 
while, many of Colonel Urownlow's men, — the brigade was an East 
Tennessee organization, — haxing \nirestrained access to the whiskey 
shops of the town, were half drunken. Morgan's dead body, still 
bleeding, — the blood issuing from the orifice made by the musket ball 
in his back, — was taken from the garden by Captain Northington, 
placed across the bow of his saddle, and thus borne on horse-back 
through the streets of Greenville. This was done that the people and 
soldiers might know that the terrible raider and plunderer was dead. 

"Morgan may have been a better man than they deemed him, but 
he was abhorred, as a lawless robber, ruffian, and heartless freebooter, 
by the common people of East Tennessee. Horrible stories were told 
o{ his brutalities and crimes, and whether well founded or not, it is 
certainly true that his allegeil lawless ileeds caused the promulgation 
of the order depriving him of his command, which we found among 
his papers in Mrs. Williams' house. 

"It is proper to say that General Gillem was ot obscure origin. His 
mother was keeper of an apple-st^nd in Grainesborough, Jackson 
County, East Tennessee. He was the protege of General Alvin 

^Captain Clay ;> still living in East 'Tennessee. 



FAGOTS FROM THE CAMP FIRE. 89 

Cullum, formerly circuit judge at Gainesborough and, later, member 
of Congress. While sitting in Congress, Cullum sent Gillem to West 
Point and Andrew Johnson, because Gillem was an East Tennesseean, 
caused him to be transferred from a quarter-master's to a brigadier 
general's position. Gillem's nomination was still unconfirmed by 
the Senate when his command moved upon Greenville. 

"Gillem, when Colonels Brownlow, Miller, and Ingerton urged him 
to attack Morgan's command in Greenville, when they supposed 
Morgan to be in Abingdon, refused to do so. He finally agreed 
that the attack might be made. ^Vhen his subordinate officers men- 
tioned moved upon the place through a pitiless and ceasless rain-storm, 
marching at night over the worst possible roads, to attack a force twice 

as strong as their own, Gillem said to Brownlow that it was ' a d d 

wild goose chase and he would have nothing to do with it.' 

"Brownlow answered, 'If we don't attack Morgan, we know he 
means to attack us. Then we will be surely beaten. As assailants, 
we will be victorious.' 

"But Gillem refused at last to participate in the assault upon Green- 
ville, remaining several miles away at a country farmhouse. When 
he came into Greenville he encountered Colonel Brownlow who had 
pursued Morgan's flying men more than five miles toward Jonesboro' 
and returned to Greenville. 

"Brownlow said to Gillem, 'We have killed General Morgan.' 

"Gillem supposed Morgan to be in Abingdon where he was seen by 
Gillem's spies. Therefore, he believed that Brownlow was jesting. 

" 'There,' said Brownlow, 'is Captain Clay, of General Morgan's 
staff. Let me introduce you. He will confirm my statements.' 

"Gillem was amazed and the more delighted. The United States 
Senate had recently refused to confirm his nomination as brigadier 
general. He knew that this sublime luck, in the achievement of 
which he had not the slightest agency, assured his confirmation." 

Gillem was not mistaken. The taking off of the rebel raider 
made Gillem a major general and, after peace, a colonel in the 
regular army. He will be remembered for the defeat he suffered in 
the lava beds at the hands of the red warrior Captain Jack. 

It should be stated perhaps, in connection with this recital of facts 
by the ex-bushwhacker, that it may be colored somewhat by his 
prejudices, but he could have no selfish motive impelling him to do 
injustice to Gillem who was loaded, it seems, with honors for a deed 
of which he was wholly innocent. Even so of a woman who left 
Mrs. Williams' house the evening that Morgan arrived. She, or 
others for her, caused the story to go abroad that she went to Gillem's 
head-quarters that night and telling him that Morgan, unguarded, 
slept at Mrs. Williams' house, induced Gillem to assail the town. 
Nothing is further from the truth. 

Colonels Brownlow, Miller, and Ingerton did induce Gillem to 
assent to the assault upon Morgan's greater force than their own, but 
the argument they made, as already given, was that, in Morgan's 



90 FAGOTS FROM THE CAMP FIRE> 

absence, his command would be much more easily discomfited, 
and they knew that Morgan or they themselves must be beaten. 
Their only security rested in an oftensive, aggressive campaign. 
But Gillem shrank from it and at the last moment stood aloof, 
and neither conceived nor proposed nor executed and only assented 
to the plans of his subordinates, Colonels Brownlow, Ivliller, and 
Ingerton. 

"It may be proper to say," added the schoolmaster, "that special 
■credit is due Captains Wilcox and Northington who commanded the 
squad of 50 men that surrounded Mrs. \V'illiams' residence and 
prevented the escape of Morgan and his staff. Major Newell, com- 
manding about 100 of the Tenth Michigan Cavalry, actively 
co-operated in the assault upon Morgan's 2200 men, our whole 
force numbering iioo. 

"I wish to add that, for the first time in this unhappy war, a surgeon, 
A. E. Gibson, here distinguished himself by acts of personal valor. 
He brought down his man with a musket instead of a dissecting 
knife; and then, when the fighting was done, was as generous and 
kindly to prisoners he captured as to the soldiers of his own (Colonel 
John B. Brownlow's) regiment. By the way, I have a theory that 
doctors, as well as poets, are born not made. Dr. Frank A. Ramsay, 
of Knoxville, would have been the first pathologist of the age if he 
had never read a book or managed countless hospitals or sat through 
all the years of his busy life at bedsides of the sick and dying. He 
reads one's disease when he reads his face, and ministers to that of 
mind or body with matchless art." 

The schoolmaster and I were resting on blankets near a fire that 
burned against the body of a great fallen oak. We heard the clatter 
of horses' hoofs at the base of the hill. Knowing that these horsemen 
would surely see the smoke and flame and inspect our resting place, 
we gathered up guns and baggage and went into denser woods in the 
valley below, following the course of the road that we might discover 
the character and purposes of the horsemen. They proved to be 
general officers of the Confederate army on a tour of inspection. 
They were accompanied by aides-de-camp and a small body of 
cavalry. Generals Bate, Walthall, Cleburne, Walker, Mercer, and 
perhaps others were of the number. I was delighted to meet General 
Cleburne, and as soon as I heard his voice and before I recognized his 
face, ran into the road to greet him. Cleburne dismounting, grasped 
my hand, and commended me, in a kindly little speech, to his 
comrades, telling them how long and well I had served him as a scout. 
I was pleased to see with General Bate the newspaper man who had 
assisted at baptismal services on the Cumberland Mountains. He 
Avas evidently delighted to encounter me. He said his brother John 
was a private in Pinson's Mississippi Cavalry, and that he was spend- 
ing a week or two with John and with General Bate. I suggested to 
the journalist the possibility of exciting adventures between the lines, 
and proposed his participation in dangers of an incursion into 
Tennessee. I adverted to the delightful companionship of the 



FAGOTS FROM THE CAMP FIRE. 91 

pedagogue, who spun interminable yarns, in a modest, unobtrusive 
way, through days and nights by glowing camp fires. The editor was 
captured, I think, by the pedagogue. He gave his horse to his brother 
and even after swimming the icy Tennessee at Bridgeport, was pleased 
to renew modes of life peculiar to those who never dared to sleep 
beneath a roof and rarely twice within a month at the same place. 
The journalist and I, after arranging for a future meeting with his 
brother, and after I had given General Cleburne a hurried description 
of the country and told him that he was then* six miles from the 
enemy's nearest outposts and twelve from his own, bade adieu to 
officers and men and soon joined the pedagogue at the camp fire. 

We moved that afternoon five miles toward Starnes' place. Starnes' 
pretty daughter, it will be remembered, had fascinated Spratling when 
we captured the supposed deserter Ellison. To this new encampment 
Spratling was to return the next day. Here clearest, most delicious 
chalybeate water gushed from between great flat stones in a deep 
narrow valley, and from the summit of the high hill above the spring 
we could see the road a mile along its tortuous course that led to 
Chattanooga. The schoolmaster was rapidly recovering from the 
effects of his toilsome journey, and the newspaper man ready for any 
adventure. 

Making a fire of materials that would blaze little and glow in living 
coals, we sat, half-reclining upon blankets, a fallen tree serving as a 
pillow. Broiled bacon, hard tack, and coffee taken from Mrs. 
Shields' depository of supplies constituted materials for an excellent 
evening repast. This disposed of, we lighted our pipes, and the editor 
and the schoolmaster began to discuss the course of public and 
military events. I had given the journalist a brief sketch of Mr. 
Wade's career, and in order to account for the presence of such a 
man in such a place, had shown how valuable he had become. 

"In 1S60-61," said the journalist, "I was as devout a Unionist as 
yourself, Mr. Wade. I then abhorred, even as I was taught in child- 
hood to hate Benedict Arnold, those who advocated the secession of 
the South. It was in June, 1861, that I inserted a paragraph in the 
newspaper of which I was then a youthful editor, in which I said 
there was no practical difference between Jefferson Davis, a secession- 
ist, and Wendell Phillips, an abolitionist. In other words, I declared 
secessionism and abolitionism identical in purpose and results. I was 
arrested under a decree emanating from the despotic vigilance 
committee, and when taken before that body, was informed by the 
president, Frazer Titus, an honest, good citizen, who had gone mad 
with many like him, that if the conduct of the Daily BtiUetin were 
not conformed to the necessities of the Confederacy, the newspaper 
should not exist. I was told that if I had not been born, reared, and 
educated in the South, and if my social position were different, I 
would be imprisoned and exiled. This occurred just before Tennessee 
finally agreed to co-operate with the Gulf States. 

"What are we going to do about it?" continued the newspaper 



92 FAGOTS FROM THE CAMP FIRE. 

man. "Suppose we win this fight, which does not seem very 
probable. We will have two Unions instead of one. Each, jealous 
of the other, will maintain a great standing army. White people are 
tired of fighting and abhor already, every fact and incident of the 
war. It is stated that two-thirds of those enlisted as Confederate 
soldiers since 1861 have deserted. Admitting, however, • that the 
South win, will it retain its winnings? Will not two Unions, if we fly 
from one, be doubly intolerable? Will the people endure quadrupled 
burdens of taxation? The truth is I don't see very clearly what we 
are fighting for. 

"We are not waging war for negro property. Those owning 
twenty negroes are exempt from military service. Then no father or 
mother would give a son's life for all the blacks on the continent. 
Then, too, negro slavery has become negro 'servitude' and if there 
had never been an abolitionist or secessionist to keep the country in 
an uproar, thus enabling them to secure offices and honors by the 
consolidation of parties and sections, if the right of petition had 
never been denied, the slave codes of the several southern states would 
have been mollified and the process of emancipation, as Henry Clay 
advised, been begun. Even with these fierce slave codes nominally 
operative and now and then enforced, prohibiting the education of 
negroes and subjecting them to restraints and penalties too horrible to 
approve, negroes on every plantation are taught to read and write, 
and in wide districts the best preachers are hired to minister to their 
spiritual wants. 

"The negroes know what will be the result of Federal triumph in 
this conflict and yet they are content to toil industriously and create 
supplies in the absence of masters and overseers everywhere, for the 
armies of Jefferson Davis. Luckily our wives, mothers, sisters, and 
sweethearts are left at home under the guardianship of "servants' 
and not of 'slaves.' The next step in African redemption should be 
a modification of the Mexican system of peonage, and then should 
come perfect liberty. President Lincoln entertains proper opinions 
on this subject, and General Cleburne and others of our leaders 
propose to give absolute freedom to those negroes who serve in our 
army. Many of our general officers oppose the scheme of negro 
conscription, but such multitudes of capable white men now escape by 
nameless and numberless subterfuges and deserters become so innumer- 
able, that the negro will soon be required to do more than feed and 
clothe and care for the families of these soldiers. General Cleburne 
is not singular in advocating negro conscription and then negro 
emancipation. 

"White men are weary of the toils and dangers and hardships of 
these terrible campaigns and begin to think that as soldiers are veriest 
slaves, so slaves should be iaultless soldiers. I ani persuaded that, 
however the war result, the negro will be the gainer. If we win, it 
will be through negro intervention as a soldier and because negroes 
fed and clothed us and have taken care of our families while we 



FAGOTS FROM THE CAMP FIRE. 93 

fought. In the county in which my father, mother, and sisters live in 
Eastern Mississippi there are at this hour thirty thousand negroes and 
less than four thousand whites, and two-thirds of these whites are 
helpless old men and women and children. I have never dreamed of 
danger to befall those I love. In fact, the more perfect the liberty 
given this peculiar race the stronger the development of those singular 
virtues of patience and kindliness that everywhere distinguish the 
African. I saw a letter in Harpers' W'eekly written in 1S60 from New 
Orleans, by James Harper, in which he said the planters of the South 
were most anxious because of the conduct of their slaves; pruning- 
hooks, scythes, axes, and all implements that might be used for 
murderous purposes were carefully removed at night from the negroes' 
reach and that servile insurrections were greatly dreaded. Some 
knave imposed upon Mr. Harper. I have never heard man or woman 
in the south refer to the negro except in kindness, and never heard a 
suspicion of negro fidelity to his master suggested, and now quite one 
half of our generals would gladly convert the blacks into soldiers, 
giving freedom to each family whose head serves a year or falls in the 
ranks." 

I asked the journalist if he believed negro servitude would end if we 
won victory at last. 

"Certainly," he answered. "Each of the two rival Unions, 
Lincoln's and Jeff Davis', must maintain great armies and fleets. 
Each 'nation' will fear the other. White men are already vv'eary of 
military life, and its duties will be assumed, north and south, by 
negroes. Lincoln and Davis will finally become two starveling, lean, 
lank, lantern-jawed grand Turks, upheld by two grand armies of 
black janizaries. Lincoln, like Andrew Johnson, is a native-born 
'plebeian,' and Jefferson Davis an aristocrat. But whatever their 
impulses or purposes, they will be helpless. The two Unions, because 
of retro-active pressure, must become consolidated, costly despotisms. 
Burdens of taxation will be enormous and the people, remembering 
the time, prior to i860, when we did not know, except that the poli- 
ticians howled mightily, that we had a government, will force their 
masters to reconstruct the Federal Union. Therefore I could never 
see any use in secession or in all this terrible fighting. The end 
defined is inevitable. If the North triumph, the Union will be 
restored, less slavery ; if the South, the Union will be as surel\- 
reproduced with gradual emancipation. 

"But there is a fight progressing. I can't stop it and I couldn't 
l^revent it. I am only for the under dog in the fight. It is my 

d d dog," said the journalist laughingly, while he contemplated 

the smiling face of the drowsy pedagogue, who said: 

"I don't see that we differ widely enough to render further 
discussion a necessity, and I am only led to reflect by what you have 
stated, that when the disgusted, weary people of the South no longer 
sing that horrible, dolorous ditty which has utterly unmanned your 
soldiers and broken the spirit of your women, whose pitiful refrain is 



94 FAGO'i'S FROM THE CAMP FIRE. 

lA,ke's " History of Morgan's Chv.I^^'Mh M °", ''",^' ^40 of General Basil 

which defiled it by (General Cinl^ 7' ^^^'-gan's "I'ody was taken from hands 

sent to us under VSo 'u c" ' Tt wa" l' ""l "^''^.'■, "■"^"' ^' ^^'"^^"-"^ -^d 
Hollywood at Richmond!.' Thus'it seen^ tiTA r'.^ f;'"^"^"", ^"^' ^^^^'■^^'^•■d i" 
General (Jille.n was not at (^ri^lll^E ^ g^J^ .1^""' ''"'^^ "^"^"'^ ^'^^^ 
to oE'tJ^tjn;;:; t;^^7:^r -'-f --^^r^M.. Wmian. .nveyed 
wrong, (ireenville was Sed 1 ec. s. M ' ^" ''^'^ ^^"^'■"' ^- '^ ^^^0% 

tl-t therefore his command vwIr/ldireSy^^^^^^^^^ "" "'P^^"^^^ ^° "^^ ^•^-"^' -^^ 

inc^;ah;:'of't.5^i:s!^^;s,:-sa^.t;r;; f^-^^- ^'^°r^'^ ^-"' ^^- ^^ -- 

East Tennessee. But Gene al I)uJ r \ supposed vices by the people of 

was about to be " cc^rt^mrt 'a kd " for .It '1 /'^^'^'^hool-master stated, thai Morgan 
and banks. m^rtialed for alleged lawless exactions imposed upon people 



CHAPTER XIV. 



Bessie Stames. — Spratling's Story. — His Enormous Strength saves his Life. — Two 
Prisoners. — Two Dead Scouts. — Spratling's Confession. 

Spratling reached the modest log house, in which Bessie Starnes 
budded into young womanhood, late in the afternoon. His habits as 
a scout made him cautious and watchful. He refused to sleep in the 
house, not because he feared betrayal by its inmates, but capture and 
death at the hands of implacable, cunning bushwhackers. These 
"loyalists" ascribed to Spratling's extraordinary physical strength the 
peculiar mode of execution to which the captors of the bushwhacker, 
whose neck was broken by an elastic hickory tree, had resorted. The 
story went abroad that Spratling, when enraged, was capable of any 
terrible act of demonism. He was hated as he was feared, and never 
did one suffer more unjustly at the bar of opinion. There was never 
a soldier more fearless, and never one more kindly and generous or 
less capable of cruelty or injustice. He condemned the conduct of the 
drunken men who broke the neck of the dastardly assassin by tying it 
to the bent tree, even more harshly than I who reported the outrage 
at head-f]uarters, that the drunken malefactors might be, as they were. 
severely punished. 

But to Spratling's miraculous muscular strength was ascribed the 
horrible deed, and he knew that assassins plotted his destruction. At 
night-fall he left Starnes' house, going down into the valley. Entering 
the woods, he ascended the hill and slept on its summit. When he 
awoke at day dawn, seeing two men get out of a light wagon drawn 
by a single horse and enter the house, he went down to the road in 
front of the house. They wore pistols in their belts, having no other 
visible weapons. They remained in the house perhaps half an hour. 



96 FAGOTS FROM THE CAMP FIRE. 

and came out with Bessie Starnes walking very slowlv and doubtinaly 
between them towards the wagon. Spratling' could 'not comprehelid 
the propriety or necessity for Bessie's departure, seated between two 
blue-coated Federal soldiers. Presenting his repeater he stood at 
the horse's head, telling the two men thev were " Spratlina's 
prisoners. Obey me, and if you are friends of Bessie Starnes you 
shall go free; if you mean an)- harm to her, I'll cut your throats" 

The aspect of Spratling when excited and when he drew himself up 
to his full height and spoke with curt fierceness was even awe-inspirino- 
_ "Come, Bessie, tell me what all this means. Drop your weapons 
instantly," he continued, addressing the two soldiers in a voice of 
thunder. -'Bring me those pistols, Bessie. Your friends are m no 
danger, but I am while they are armed. I don't understand this 
proceeding, and because I love you and I see your mother wrinaino- 
her hands and crying m the house, I don't intend to let you go away 
till I know why you go." -' » / 

The two men had dropi)ed their pistols and Bessie stood motionless 
staring vacantly in Spratling's face. There was no time for any 
discussion of the tacts. Wkh a cocked repeater in each hand Sprat- 
ling advanced toward her. Ordering the men to stand aside he 
secured the weajjons, made the men mount into the wagon while he 
held the horse, and conferred with Bessie. Spratling recitine the 
facts afterward, said : 

'T had heard Bessie speak of several Federal officers from Chattanooo-a 
who had visited her. She had often adverted to a quarter-mast?r 
whose marked and persistent demonstrations of love and admiration 
annoyed and even offended her. He made Be.ssie costly presents 
and she loved finery only too well and could not repel the generous 
'major as decisively as she should have done. The 'major' had 
learned at last that Charley Hughes, a lieutenant in Colonel Cliff- 's 
Union regiment, was desperately enamored of Bessie and that she 
lavished_ upon Charley all the wealth of her boundless love Once 
Avhen this quarter-master was at Starnes' house, while Bessie was in 
the kitchen, the quarter-master discovered in Bessie's table drawer a' 
package of well-worn letters. He hastily read one of the.se ardently 
aff-ectionate epistles and thinking that its possession might in some 
way invest him with power over the beautiful girl, he appi^opriated it. 
Soon afterward he conceived the plot now sought to be executed. 
He forged a skillfully drawn letter from Charley Hughes This was 
the paper which Bessie held tightly in her grasp when I made the two 
soldiers drop their pistols and get into the wagon. 

" 'Bessie,' I said, 'you must tell me what this means. Why do you 
propose to leave with those two villainous-looking fellows > You know 
1 am your friend and even more than friend. This is not right or ^afe 
and unless you make me understand that it is, I will take that wagon 
and those two soldiers to our rendez^^ous at once and have these men 
sent m as prisoners of war.' 

"Bessie still hesitating and frightened, at length came to my side 



FAGOTS FROM THE CAMP FIRE. 97 

and placed the crushed letter in my hand. I opened it and read 
as follows : 

" 'Hospital No. 6, Chattanooga, February 2, 1S64. 
" 'My Dearest Bessie: — I was severely wounded in a skirmish on the picket line 
last Monday. I thought I would be well enough to reach your home and be per- 
fectly blest as the object of your tender care. But the inflammation of the wound 
makes it threaten my life, and the surgeon says I cannot go to you. Will you not 
come to me before I die ? You can return to your home in the evening. The kind 
doctor lends me his horse and ambulance, and you can trust the two men I send to 
guard you. Ever your own, 

" ' Charley.' 

"'Bessie,' I said, after slowly reading Charley's note, 'Charley 
didn't write that letter. It wasn't written by a dying man. It don't 
sound right or honest. It is too long and stiff and particular, and 
those fellows in that wagon there must tell me who wrote that letter or 

I will string them to the limb of that oak. There is some d d 

scoundrel at the bottom of this rascally business. Pjessie,' I said, 
'read it over again. Are you sure Charley wrote it?' 

"She looked at me vacantly and then at the letter most intently. 
Hesitating, and evidently doubting the genuineness of the paper, she 
said : 

"'Oh! yes; Charley wrote it. Nobody could be wicked enough 
to write me such a story if it were false.' 

" ' It is false, and those men in that wagon are hired to place you in 
the power of some villain in Chattanooga. ' 

"The pair of knaves grew pale when I gazed in their faces. The 
devil was in me and I wonder I had not killed them at the instant. 

"Just then three bushwhackers who left Chattanooga as scouts, and 
had followed closely after the wagon containing the two soldiers, 
came riding rapidly toward me. My repeaters were in my belt and 
I held a Henry rifle in my hand. The scouts were within fifty 
yards or less when I turned and ordered them to halt. They obeyed, 
and then seeing at length that I stood alone with Bessie, and that two 
Federal soldiers, armed, as they supposed, were in the wagon, they 
began to advance. The horse attached to the ambulance had been 
turned and was ready to move toward Chattanooga. 

"Then it was, gentlemen," continued Spratling, "that my great 
strength saved my life and prevented the seizure and ruin of Bessie 
Starnes by those dreadful villains. 

"When the three bushwhackers suddenly raised their carbines to 
their faces I shoved Bessie violently out of harm's way. She fell 
almost senseless in the corner of the fence. I leaped to the rear of 
the wagon and the two knaves in it struck the horse, a gaunt, bony 
animal he was, thinking to expose me to the aim of the scouts. But 
my blood was up. Bessie was in danger and I was savage. I seized 
the rear axle of the wagon with my left hand and held the wagon as 
still as if it had been anchored there from all eternity. The two 
soldiers in it struck and cursed the struggling horse, and when he 

7 



98 Fx\GOTS FROM THE CAMP FIRE. 

jerked and reared, standing on his iiindmost legs, and fell back 
helpless, they turned and saw my arm holding them fast. They 
looked pitifully and helplessly into my face. They were paralyzed by 
overwhelming amazement that begets nameless terror. The Federal 
scouts, expecting the struggling horse to move the wagon out of the 
way that they might shoot me down, stared in mute amazement at the 
helpless animal. As soon as he was still for an instant, I fired, and 
one of the scouts fell from his saddle. The other two turned to fly. I 
shot a second, and the third alone escaped. Neither of them fired a shot. 

"Bessie still lay frightened and stunned by the roadside. I was not 
absolutely sure that the men in the wagon had no weapons and feared, 
if I turned away to raise lier up, they might fire on me and drive back 
to Chattanooga. Dropping my rifle and seizing the rear axle of the 
wagon with both hands, I raised it suddenl)' — the horse's head was 
turned down the hill toward Chattanooga — and overturned it, with 
the men in it, upon the horse's back. The men, stunned and brui.sed, 
rolled down the declivity; the frightened horse, with the wagon body 
on his back, fled in terror. His speed down that hill was never 
eclipsed. The wagon body soon fell off and the wheels took their 
places in the road and the frightened horse was found dead nearly a 
mile from the spot. 

"The two knaves were almost killed by their sudden elevation ai'id 
fall. I made them come to me and, while Mrs. Starnes attended to 
Bessie, I tied their hands together behind their backs. They were 
perfectly helpless because perfectly unmanned by amazement and 
terrur. I never saw faces full of such heli)less agony as the two knaves 
wore when they found I was stronger than the horse that struggled in 
vain to move the wagon, ^t was this that struck the approaching 
bushwhackers dumb with astonishment and made them stop a moment 
to stare at the struggling animal. They could not believe their eyes 
when they saw the venerable brute straining every sinew of body and 
legs and plunging forward madly and yet fixed to the spot where I 
held him. The horse trembled either from terror, or it may have 
been from tremendous exertion of strength. But he shuddered 
visibly. 1 felt the wagon tremble after each vain effort made by the 
horse to move it." 

"What wonderful stories the fellow that escaped told of your deeds 
in Chattanooga," said the schoolmaster to Spratling, "and if ever 
those two knaves and pimps for the villainous quarter-master escape or 
return to their command won't they noise abroad the fame and deeds 
of Spratling ! 

"I am almost tempted, Captain, to ask you to turn them loose. I 
would, were it not that they are such infamous kna\-es. They were 
hired by that remorseless villain, the (piarter-master, to bring that 
forged letter to Bessie, and take her to some den of iniquity in 
Chattanooga. When tied and questioned separately they finally 
confessed the whole truth." 

"There's something else I want to tell," said Spratling. "I am 



FAGOTS FROM THE CAMP FIRE. 99 

not sure that Bessie would have me tell it, but there is no harm in it, 
and as I will never see Bessie again she should not care. Then the 
newspaper man and the schoolmaster will never meet her or tell 
anybody who will repeat it in Bessie's neighborhood, and I might as 
well finish my story. 

"You know, Captain, I loved Bessie. I do think she is too good 
and too beautiful for this world. When she came to her senses, after 
that bloody work this morning and looked up so gratefully in my face 
and when I was watching the color come and go in her pale, sweet 
face, and the lights and shadows that fled from one another across the 
great depths of her beautiful eyes — when she said to me in low, soft, 
musical tones : 

" ■' Do you know now that I owe }ou more than my life, and that I 
am ready to give even that to you.' She put her little brown hand 
in mine, and looked up in my face with such a dreamy look of 
grateful love, that I — I couldn't help it, Captain — I kissed the pretty 
girl and pressed her passionately to my heart. 

"But I began to think, and knew I was doing wrong. I began to 
recall the incidents of the morning. I remembered that Bessie was 
impelled by irresistible affection to risk her life and fame that she 
might Avatch at the bedside of the man she really loved. 'Spratling,' 
I said to myself, 'you have no right to take advantage of this pretty 
girl's gratitude. She loves another and if you really love Bessie you 
must not make her wretched by inducing her to become your own 
because she thinks she owes you a debt that cannot othervrise be 
paid.' 

"I stood up, Captain, and told Bessie I was an honest man, and 
that I loved her with all my heart, but that I had forced her that 
morning to tell me wh}- she proposed to go to Chattanooga. ' I can 
not, Bessie, save your life in order to make it wretched. I love you 
madly enough, God knows, but you love Charley, and you shall wed 
Charley.' 

"I bade her good bye, Captain, and she wept with a pitiful sort of 
smile, significant, I thought, of her gratitude, playing about her pale, 
sweet face — gratitude because I had now given her to perfect blessed- 
ness and to Charley Hughes. 

" Holding both her hands and gazing long and rapturously into those 
wonderful eyes, I kissed her again and ran away. ' ' 

I, who rewrite the story of the adventures of these scouts, am 
impelled to say that Spratling and Bessie and Mamie and Bessie's 
Federal lieutenant and the captain all met, and not very many weeks 
after the occurrences just recited. How these men and women were 
brought together, and what strange consequences sprang from personal 
interviews, subsequent jjages will tell. 



CHAPTER XV. 



Around the Camp Fire. — The Newspaper Man Again. — " Put me down among the 
Dead." — T)ie Newspaper Man as a Re.surrectionist. — Bottled up. — Eveiy Man 
his own Ghost. 

With flowers we deck our soldiers' graves, 
With drooping folds our standard waves 
Where flowers and lawn the dew-drop laves 
And breath of spring is softly blown 
O'er mounds where, on a simple stone, 
The record says they were — " Unknown." 

E}nily Ila'othorne. 

Spratling's almost incredible account of his sojourn at Starnes' 
farmhouse begat profound silence about the camp fire. We sat gazing 
moodily into the burning, glowing heap of wood and ashes, watching 
intently the weird shapes assumed, and brilliant, quivering forms that 
danced, and castles, towers, domes, and minarets that rose and 
gleamed and fell among the living coals. The captain rose at length 
and went away saying : 

"If everything is quiet we should sleep. We must march to- 
morrow. ' ' 

The newspaper man said he had been writing, before Spratling 
returned, an account of the woes of a poor soldier whom he had 
encountered twice since the war began. 

"There is such an admixture of mirth and sadness," said the 
editor, "begotten of the simple facts that I cannot tell, when recalling 
the incidents, whether I should laugh or weep. I was pursuing my 
life-long vocation," he continued, "when I stood upon the heights at 
Columbus, Kentucky, and witnessed the descent of U. S. Grant's 
brigade — Iowa and Illinois troops, I think they were — upon Colonel 



FAGOTS FROM THE CAMP FIRE. loi 

Tappan's Arkansas regiment and a squadron of cavalry encamped on 
the low, flat shore of the Mississii)pi. Confederate official reports of 
that battle did not confess the fact ; but my impression was that 
Grant played his cards for all they were worth, and by this first little 
game of "poker" with bayonets, Bishop General Polk, being his 
vis-a-vis, demonstrated his capacity to "hold his hand" and play it 
skillfully even when R. E. Lee sits facing him, as he does to-night in 
front of Richmond. After the fight, I went to the adjutant or colonel 
of each Confederate regiment engaged, to ascertain the names of the 
killed and wounded. It was late at night when I reached Colonel 
Jem Cole's quarters. He led, in this action, raw Tennessee troops, 
and several were killed or wounded. I was sitting beside him at the 
entrance to the tent, and had made full memoranda for the night's 
telegrams, when an old man, hat in hand, and holding a lantern close 
to my face, said : 

"I wish, Capting, you would put me down among the dead." 

"Why?" I asked. 

"Oh, it doesn't signify," answered Gibbons, Cole's orderly, "but 
you see, Fm gwine onto fifty yeahs or mo' and I was fool enough to 
marry a nice young gal. She ain't more'n twenty-eight; she's down 
to Vicksburg whar I live. Well, she kinder got tired ov me somehow 
and scolded a heap, and made it hot for the old feller, sometimes, 
and I didn't like her carryings-on with the boys like, and when the 
drums beat and fifes shrieked in the streets, day and night, you see, 
Capting, I thought mebbe Mary Ann would be sorry and kinder come 
round a little if an old feller like me dressed up like a soger in fine 
toggery and went to the wars and she knowed what made me go. She 
knowed home wasn't comfortable. She was sorter sorry, I reckon, 
when I marched away to the steamboat to come here; but she didn't 
say much and she don't write to me, and I think ef you'll help me, 
Capting, I can bring her. Ef you'll print in the papers that Fm 
dead, she'll know she killed me. She knows Fm here because she 
wasn't good to me. Will you kill me in the papers, Capting?" 

"I haven't the slightest objection," I said. "You are in earnest," 
I asked, "and you want me to say that you were shot between the 
eyes fighting gallantly beside Colonel Cole, and that you fell dead in 
the front rank of your brave regiment?" 

"That's the very way to put it," answered Gibbons. 

I met Bassett, soon afterward, the clever and kindly correspondent 
of the Appeal. We interchanged memoranda, and Bassett, as well as 
I, telegraphed the story of Gibbons' heroic death. This happened 
on the night of the yth of November, 1861, when telegraphic wires 
north and south were made tremulous by the exciting story of the 
first battle fought in the war between the States, in the valley of the 
Mississippi. 

More than two years had elapsed, when, not many days ago, I 
sought the quarters of General Preston Smith, that I might encounter 
friends left at Columbus, Kentucky, late in November, 1861. I was 



I02 FAGOTS FROM THE CAMP FIRE. 

riding along placidly enough, and within our lines, occasionally 
accosted by a sentinel, to whom I exhibited a passport from the Pro- 
vost Marshal. General .' At length an aged man, stepping out 

from behind a tree and looking intently in my face, exclaimed, 
nervously and tpiickly : 

" Halt there! " 

I drew the rein and at the same instant extended my right hand 
with the passport. The gray-haired sentinel only stared at me and at 
length said, as if soliloquizing: 

'^D d ef it ain't him ! " 

"Ain't who?" I asked. 

"You are the feller what killed me at the battle of Belmont, ain't 
you?" 

Seeing that the old fellow was still living and yet talked of himself 
as dead, I knew he was a lunatic, and saw that he was well armed. I 
had no weapon of any description, and confess I felt anxious. He 
still held his musket at a " present arms." Constantly, through two 
years, in the midst of ever-recurring excitements, of course I had 
utterly forgotten that I had ever advertised any one as dead at 
Belmont, and there was nothing in this rude, bent, gray old soldier to 
recall the neatly clad, erect Mr. Gibbons, who w'as acting as Colonel 
Cole's orderly in November, iS6i, at Columbus, Kentucky. 

He still stared at me. I said to him, soothingly: 

"Are you not mistaken? I don't think I killed anybody in the 
battle of Belmont. I only crossed the river in -the afternoon and saw 
the fighting at the boats, when Grant's troops were going away." 

"Oh, Fm not talking about that." said Gibbons. "You killed me 
by telegraph. Don't you remember it?" 

I now knew that I was arrested by a maniac. The bare suggestion 
of death by telegraph instead of by railway implied hopeless, irreme- 
diable insanity. 

I was at my wit's end and could only suggest that I had "almost 
forgotten it." 

"D n it," exclaimed the old fellow, bringing his musket down 

till its muzzle almost touched my face, "Fm Gibbons, Colonel Cole's 
orderly, and you sent my death to the Avalanche, and the Whig, at 
A^ic:ksburg, copied it, and every other newspaper in the wurruld, I 
think. I thought my wife would sorter cmn round and be sorry like, 
and that she'd be glad when I resurrected, and sorter went home outer 
the graveyard like. But you played h- — — 1, you did." 

The fun involved in the queer facts now began to dawn u])on me. 
I remembered Gibbons and his supposititious heroic death, and liow 
poor Bassett and I slew him with our little pencils. 

"Mr. Gibbons," I remarked, solemnly, "you told me to publish 
the story." 

"Yes, that may be, but you shan't laff about it. You played 

h 1, I tell you ! The news went, and kept agoin' and everybody 

knowed I was dead, very dead. I was, sir, cl d dead," exclaimed 



FAGOTS FROM THE CAMP FIRE. 103 

the old man, and he stamped the groinid as if his hated corpse was 
beneath it. 

I could not repress signs of laughter. 

"Look here," exclaimed the old fellow, "I won't have any of 
that. You'll be shot deader than I am, except in the newspapers, ef 
you don't cork up." 

He was profoundly in earnest. His eyes blazed, and I "corked 
up." I was, in fact, profoundly solemn. The musket was coming up 
to my face. 

"FU do anything I can for you, Mr. Gibbons." 

"Well, then, git down and resurrect me." 

I was again puzzled. It occurred to me that surely the man was a 
maniac. How was I to "resurrect" him? 

"Git down," he repeated, "and write it all out and sign your name 

to it, and tell 'em it was all a d d lie, and that I ain't deaa. The 

old 'oman and the infernal lawyers has done administered to my 
e-state. She sold my fo' niggahs, and she was about marryin' another 
feiler when I last hearn from her. Be quick and straighten it all out. 
When I writes, or rayther when I gits some other feller to write and I 
makes my mark to the letter they sends back word, they can't be 
humbugged. They knows I'm dead and that no swindling rascal can 
git money outen her. I'm ben miserable, mighty miserable, ever 
sense you killed me in the newspapers. I lost home, wife, property, 
everything, and I am gettin' very old, and now I'm buried alive, and 
out'n the wiuTuld, and still knows I was in it." 

Tears came into the old man's eyes, his voice faltered, he bowed 
his head, and I pitied him with all my heart. In broken accents, he 
went on : 

"Last summer I got a furlow to go home for thirty days, and 
took sick and lay thar in a horspital at Jackson till I only had one 
day left. I staggered down, a skelly-ton, to the railroad, and rode 
on the kyars to my farm, whar my wife lives sense she sold my house 
and lot in town, twelve miles outen Vicksburg. I got thar about 
dusk, and staggered along till I got to the house. I looked jest like a 
dead man, for all the wurruld. I staggered in. The front door was 
open and thar sot my wife. She knowed I was dead. She was 
aholdin' a young feller's hand, and her sister was in the room. It 
looked free and easy like, as if they was used to it. I stood and 
looked and listened a minnit and hearn the gal say, 'Oh, he's ben 
dead more'n a year and a half,' when I got mad. I knowed the}' was 
atalkin' about me, and I stepped into the room, and stood thar 
silent, holdin' up my bony hands. 

" Never, in all my born days, did I hear setch screams as them two 
wimmin give. Both keeled over, dead ; deader' n ever I was. That 
ar nice young man knowed it was me. He used to know me in 
Vicksburg before I died. His eyes stood an inch or two outen his 
nice little head, and har riz up and stood like hog bristles, and 
he wur whiter than his liver. He stared at me half a minnit, and 



104 FAGOTS FROM THE CAMP FIRE. 

then went fur the winder. I think it's more'n ])robable he is arunnin' 
yet. He never looked back, nary a time. 

"Them horspital folks at Jackson had telegraphed the conscript 
officer at my railroad dippo to catch me as a deserter. When I started 
to get some whiskey for the wimmin and to be out of sight when they 
oj^ened their eyes that they mightent be skeered agin, I was ordered 
to halt. At that very minnit here come the train. The conscript 
officer tuk me with him and fetched me to Jackson, and the next 
week I was sent with six more deserters under guard to my rigiment. 
Noboddy seen me at home but them thar people. That feller what 
was gwine to marry my wife — well, I know he's clean gone. He was, 
perhaps, the wust scart man that has lit out anywhare sense this skeery 
war begun, and cowardly legs have ben mightily imposed upon and 
stretched all over these hyar states. He knows I'm a ghost, and my 
wife and her sister jest swares all the time that it was my ghost whicli 
they seed, and the nabers believed it, and that I got up outen my 
grave at Columbus, Kentucky, and traveled to Vicksburg jest to keep 
the old 'oman from marryin' that skeery chap. You see how very 
dead I am. You must help me, won't you? I don't want to be 
dead, when I know I am living, and now everyboddy swars I am 
buried and forgotten at Columbus, Kentucky, and that my ghost has 
been seen agin and agin. My wife has the ager whenever she hyars 
my name." 

I dismounted, and asked the heart-broken old man to sit beside me 
at the root of the great oak, through whose branches winds sighed 
sadly, while tears fell rapidly from the old man's eyes. 

I wrote of his griefs as I read of them now. I will publish this 
story and the old soldier may yet make the world confess that, like 
Daniel Webster, "he still lives." 



CHAPTER XVI. 



The Newspaper Man spins another Yarn. — A Porcine Steed. — Sim Sneed in the 
Role of John Gilpin. — He disperses a Batteiy. — A Dead Dog. — "The Divel 
Sure." — Denouement. 

At noon, next day, we rested on the banks of a little mountain 
stream fifty yards from the country roadway we had followed, leading 
towards Tunnel Hill. Two men on foot and one on horseback, as 
tracks in the highway indicated, were not far ahead. Whether 
enemies or friends we could not tell. Spratling went forward to 
ascertain their character. What befell him and how extraordinary 
was his action may be imagined when one reflects that he was now 
imbued with indestructible and boundless confidence in his own 
powers and in his iron muscles. And then he was reckless because 
he deemed his separation from Bessie final. 

We were eating hard bread and broiled bacon and sipping strong 
coffee when the newspaper man said he was " in Chattanooga about a 
year ago, when the daring Federal Captain, Andrews, almost succeeded 
in giving General Mitchell possession of the place. Generals Kirby 
Smith and Leadbetter were in command, Leadbetter, a supposed 
engineer, engaged in fortifying the stronghold." 

"I don't think," said the journalist, " there were more than five 
hundred soldiers in the ragged, ricketty, weather-boarded town. 
These were raw, half-armed, undisciplined Georgians encamped at the 
end of the railroad track on the river bank half a mile from the 
Crutchfield tavern, occupied by Generals Smith and Leadbetter. 

Here, in this Crutchfield tavern, occurred the conflict between 
'Bill' Crutchfield and General Vaughn of which I was telling some 
time ago, and in its immediate vicinity happened the most ludicrous 
incident that will be illustrated in all the annals of this absurd and 
ghastly war. While the word Chattanooga, signifying crow's nest, — 
the rounded hills in the valley representing, in red men's eyes, the 



io6 FAGOTS FR(3M THE CAMP FIRE. 

eggs of the bird, — is held down in its place on the map of the earth's 
surface by that mighty paper weight, Lookout Mountain, this story 
will be ever memorable. The news came to the Confederate generals, 
by telegraph from Big Shanty, that a Federal Captain, Andrews, and a 
dozen gallant men, disguised as country clodhoppers, had seized the 
locomotive at that place and were corning north. Three hundred 
passengers, and cars with reinforcements for Chattanooga, were thus 
left at Big Shanty, while Captain Andrews, coming north, was 
destroying each bridge and culvert behind him. The federal General, 
Mitchell, was at Bridgeport, west of Chattanooga, intending, as soon 
as he was advised of the success of Captain Andrews, to attack and 
capture the feebly garrisoned stronghold. He jjroposed to carry it 
by storm before bridges and culverts could be repaired, and before 
men and munitions could be sent up from Atlanta. 

"Andrews failing to cut the telegraph wire when he first left Big 
Shanty, full dispatches, telling what he had done, came to us in 
Chattanooga. A train of jjlatform, open cars was at once freighted 
with two hundred raw militiamen and sent down the road to capture 
Andrews. 

"I had slept through the night on a blanket, with Rolfe S. Saun- 
ders, beside the railway at the southern end of the Crutchfield house, 
afterwards burned. In an alley running at right angles to the railway 
and behind the tavern, slept a sick soldier named Sim Sneed. He 
was very small, short of stature, round of person, and bald-headed. 
Just before the train started out to intercept Captain Andrews, coming 
up from Big Shanty toward Chattanooga, Sim was suffering greatly. 
I gave him a large share of the exhilarating contents of Saunders' 
canteen and discovered that Sim, besides being very sick, was exceed- 
ingly drunk. The train was now coming down toward the hotel. 
Two hundred men on it rattling guns and shouting, and the roaring 
of cars and locomotive, begat a mighty noise. A huge sow, weighing 
quite four hundred pounds, was roused from her matutinal slumbers in 
a mud-hole by this dreadful uproar. She was greatly frightened, and 
came snorting and leaping along the railroad track, ahead of the 
locomotive, to our resting place. Fearing that the immense brute 
would run over and cover us with greasy slime, in which she had been 
bathing, Saunders and I stood erect. Sim Sneed, at the instant, with 
clothes vv-holly unloosened about him, because of the pain he suffered, 
hearing the noise made by the huge hog, rose up on his knees and 
elbows. He was facing the flying hog. The animal, frightened by 
Saunders and myself, turned suddenly and rapidly into the alley-way. 
Her nose passed under Sim's body, and between it and his pantaloons 
that dropped under the hog's throat. He clasped his arms about her, 
and thus, lying on his face, pinioned to the huge brute's back, he 
went careering backwards down the alley. 

"The thoroughly affrighted beast, with her involuntary rider, 
snorted like a hippopotamus. Sim's shirt lioated as a flag of truce 
above his back, as he hurried, wrong end foremost, down ' the hill. 



FAGOTS FROM THE CAMP FIRE. 107 

At the foot of this declivity, Captain Claib Kane's gallant battery 
was encamped. 

"The railway train now stood still, and three hundred men, amazed 
and silent at first, contemplated the stupendous flight of that dum- 
founded hog. At last the supreme ridiculousness of Sim Sneed's 
attitude struck the soldiers. Many had seen him caught up on the 
animal's snout and fastened on her back, and shouts and laughter 
rent the air. 

"Chattanooga was as full of dogs and fleas as Constantinople. 
These dogs all barked and howled, a fact I would not have observed 
at the moment, but many of these curious curs came rushing toward 
the tavern to see what had happened. Saunders, from a platform car 
which we had mounted, directed my attention to a big, black cur, 
with a very short tail, rushing madly along a garden fence at right 
angles to the course pursued by Sneed and the Flying Childers he 
bestrode. Just as the dog turned the corner, the hog reached it. 
That dog had never seen any living thing whose physiognomy bore 
the remotest resemblance to features made up of a sow's grim head 
thrust between a man's pantaloons and body, and this body constitut- 
ing a full, white, round forehead for the unaccountable beast. When 
the dog rushed round the corner, to face the hog, his hair was all 
turned the wrong way ; his short, stiff tail worn off by having good 
Sunday-school boys of Chattanooga tie tin buckets to it, was turned 
up stiff and straight, at right angles to his rigid backbone. The dog 
was terribly excited when he suddenly faced the sow and Sneed 
inverted. He stopped dead still ; his hair and tail instantly fell ; he 
shook ; his spine gave way ; his head sank ; he dropped upon the 
sod, and turning gently upon his side, his legs quivered, and there 
was a dead dog. 

" Captain Kane's battery of eight guns, one hundred and fifty 
horses, and as many men, was at the foot of the hill. The great, 
grim grunter, now ridden by Sneed, was well known there. She 
foraged among Captain Kane's horses ; but as she came down the 
hill, bearing Sim upon her back, she was wholly unrecognized by 
Irishmen and horses. 

" -An', what is it, Pathrick?' 

" 'An', faith, an' will ye be afther tellin' me. Jemmy?' 
" 'An', bejazes, I niver seen the loikes of it before.' 
" 'Oh, it's the divel sure, with his face white-washed.' 
"Meanwhile, the echo of voices of shouting crowds reached these 
artillerymen. They stood upon guns and caissons when the old sow 
rushed down the declivity. Horses broke away from their fastenings 
and fled in all directions, and the sow was crossing the encampment 
before the artillerymen saw how Sim Sneed became a sort of inverted 
centaur. 

"They had hardly recovered from their alarm and ceased making 
signs of the cross and invoking the Holy Virgin, when the sow passed 
out of sight under the negro shanty where her dozen pigs reposed in 



io8 FAGOTS FROM THE CAMP FIRE. 

dusty blissfulness. As she went under, Sim's fat person struck the 
sleeper of the house. The sow never halted. Sim's breeches were 
rent in twain, one-half remaining on either leg. He lay some time 
senseless in the dust. A comrade ran to him with a blanket, and Sim 
soon afterward was furloughed by Leadbetter as an insane John 
Gilpin." 



CHAPTER XVII, 



Spratling makes a Descent upon the Bushwhackers. — An Extraordinay Meeting. — 
Spratling suddenly loses his Appetite. — At Headquarters. — Camp Life. — Woman 
in War and Politics. — Why this Book was written. — Camp Fire Morals. — An 
Illustration. — A Ludicrous and Pitiful Story. — An Old Woman Eloquent. — "The 
Foremostest Sin that God Almighty will go about Forgiving." 

While the journalist was talking, as recited in preceding pages, 
Spratling followed rapidly in the footsteps of the three persons just 
ahead of us. He came upon them within a mile of our resting place. 
They had kindled a fire some distance from the highway and prepared 
their noon-day meal. Spratling concealed himself on the summit of 
the hill, watched their actions, and soon ascertained that one was a 
young soldier and officer and the others bushwhackers. He said 
afterwards that he was satisfied, while watching the movements of these 
three men, that one was the very bushwhacker who escaped when his 
two comrades fell at Starnes' home. This conviction excited a keen 
desire, Spratling said, to "capture the rascal." He had sought to 
slay Spratling, and if the latter had not held the wagon, thus guarding 
his own person despite the horse's exertions to move the vehicle, 
he vv'ould have been shot to death by his three assailants. 

•'Therefore," said Spratling, "I could not help watching and 
waiting to day for an opi)ortunity to resent the thwarted purposes of 
this bushwhacker who had escaped from me at Starnes'." 

When the soldier and bushwhackers had appeased hunger, they 
sought each a spot on which to rest. The soldier came to a great tree 
hardly fifty paces from Spratling's place of concealment. The two 
bushwhackers stretched themselves on blankets side by side. Within 
ten minutes, all were so still that Spratling believed they slept. He 
crept, stealthily and noiselessly, to the tree. One of its roots was the 
soldier's pillow. Spratling, of whose strength, as we learned after- 
wards, the sleeping soldier had heard marvelous accounts, leaped. 



no FAGOTS FROM THE CAMP FIRE. 

when within a yard or two of his victim, upon the unconscious youth 
and seizing his throat said in a whisper: 

"Be silent. You are my prisoner and are safe." 

The soldier said afterward there was no need for these injunctions 
of silence, that Spratling's grasp about his throat almost crushed every 
bone in it. 

In an instant Spratling raised the young soldier and held him, 
disarmed and helpless as he was, as a shield with one hand, while, 
presenting his repeater in the other, he ordered the two bushwhackers 
to rise and hold up their hands. 

The man who had sought to kill Spratling at Starnes' looked up, 
grew pale, and shuddering, said, in husky tones : 

"It's him! It's Si)ratting!" 

The name was magical in its potency. The two men rose with hands 
uplifted, their guns and pistols lying on their blankets. If they had 
been fearless as Spratling and resisted, one or both would have fallen 
instantly and in no event could Spratling have been killed e.vcept by 
a bullet that was first fatal to the young officer. The bushwhackers 
comprehended the exigencies of the moment and, in obedience to 
Spratling's orders, moved toward the road, fifty yards distant. The 
young officer having been disarmed, was ordered to join his two 
associates, and Spratling, with a cocked repeater in each hand and 
his Henry rifle strapped on his back, followed his prisoners to the 
creek where he had left us. 

We were not a little amazed when he laughingly ordered us to 
"open ranks" and receive his prisoners. The trio came to us 
pitifully crestfallen. They confessed in their faces a sense of shame 
that they had succumbed to the tact, courage, and notorious 
strength of one man. Meanwhile we could hardly conceal from Sprat- 
ling and his prisoners our amazement. We supposed he would bring 
accurate information, and that we might assail these supposed scouts, 
but never dreamed that he would undertake the task he had effected. 
Spratling's good nature, when he discovered the chagrin of the young 
Federal lieutenant, made him say that "he knew that his own success 
depended upon the deprivation of the young officer of every means of 
resistance and of escape. I, therefore, first disposed of him. When 
he was helpless, of course the others surrendered." 

The bushwhackers captured recognized the pedagogue as a former 
comrade, the latter stating that he was a paroled prisoner. The 
youthful officer, seeing that the pedagogue was on the best possible 
terms with the captain, Spratling, and the newspaper man, said to him 
that he had "supposed prisoners of war would be kept under guard." 

"We have no guardsmen," interposed the captain. "Now and 
then we hold as prisoners men whom we can trust implicitly, and 
Mr. Wade is of the number. I am not perfectly sure, but think it 
needless to use handcuffs or cords in dealing with you. Tell me as a 
man of honor and as a soldier that you will not attempt to escape and 
you can go where you please. The others, I anl sorry to say, since 



FAGOTS FROM THE CAMP FIRE. iii 

there are only three of us and the editor there is a volunteer aide-de- 
camp, and we now have six prisoners, must be tied together." 

The lieutenant, looking into the captain's face, said that his 
•'widowed mother's home was not far from Tunnel Hill. These loyal 
scouts had agreed to guide me safely thither. If you will suffer me to 
visit my home, I will promise anything. Flere is my furlough. It 
lasts" 

A sudden light shone in the captain's eyes. He gazed into the 
lieutenant's face with suddenly awakened interest and earnestness that 
startled the young soldier. 

"Keep your furlough," said the cajjtain. "I know who you are 
aiid your mother's name." 

The captain rose, and walking away, said, "See the schoolmaster, 
there. I accept your pledge. You can liear from Mr. Wade much 
that you would gladly know. Possibly it is most fortunate that we 
have met. I am engaged in serving those you love. The fact that 
we are public enemies need not affect our personal relations. Our 
duties and obligations as soldiers need not clash with those that rest 
upon us as men. You are paroled," continued the captain, "and I 
would only advise you to remain with us and especially that you confer 
with Mr. Wade. 

Spratling had overheard none of this colloquy. He was providing 
for the security of his prisoners. When his task was done, he came 
and sat near the editor, and was devouring bacon and bread with that 
energy which distinguished him when marching and fighting. 

"Do you know. Sprat," asked the journalist, "the name of that 
handsome young officer whom you almost choked to death a little 
while ago ?" 

"No," he answered, glancing at him and Wade, who were engrossed 
in matters they discussed, "but I don't see why the captain releases 
him on parole and at the same time handcuffs his comrades. He is 
much more dangerous than these two clodhoppers who only know the 
woods and roads and are too timid, if watched, to be murderous." 

"But do you know the name of that gentleman?" 

" No," answered Spratling, "and I don't care to know ; but I don't 
think, since it cost me so much risk to catch him, that he should be 
turned loose." 

"Let me tell you. Sprat. Come near that no one else may hear. 
That is Lieutenant Hughes, the young man Bessie Starnes talked 
about, and let me tell you further — Oh, sit still and don't get excited, 
Sprat — he is Mamie Hughes' brother." 

Spratling' s nerves and muscles were unstrung. Bread and bacon 
fell from his unconscious fingers. He slowly returned his ugly knife 
to its sheath in his belt, drew the back of his hand across his face, and 
straightening himself, as he sat, turned to stare at his prisoner. 

"Suppose," said Spratling, as if talking to himself, while he stared 
at the lieutenant, "suppose I had cut his throat, as I once thought of 
doing, while he slept, or suppose I had actually killed him, as I might 



112 FAGOTS FROM THE CAMP FIRE. 

have done, when I held his throat ! My God ! what would Bessie 
have thought of me ! " 

Forgetful of my existence, Spratling rose, and approaching the 
lieutenant, said to him : 

"You don't know how glad I am that I didn't kill you and how 
sorry because I had to make you a prisoner. I didn't know your 
name or that you knew Bessie." 

A new leaf in the volume of human nature was suddenly turned by 
the lieutenant. Bessie, only the day before, had told him of Spratling's 
honest devotion to herself, but the lieutenant deemed the gigantic 
rebel a mere animal, full of courage as of physical strength. He never 
dreamed of ascribing to the rude ranchero and herdsman of Texas a 
generosity of purpose and true nobility of character, now partially 
unfolded, such as few men have illustrated in acts or words. 

The lieutenant rose up and, slowly extending his hand, looked 
searchingly into Spratling's large, transparent blue eyes that never 
faltered while the two men studied one another's virtues as written in 
their faces. 

Spratling drew the lieutenant aside and said to him, "You don't 
know how sorry I am for what has happened ; but I couldn't help it. 
I did not know that you are Bessie's lover. She has told you about 
me, I reckon, and what a fool I was ; but she told you I was an 
honest man and that I would serve her or even a dog that she loved. 
Don't forget that while Spratling is above ground and you are true to 
Bessie, you have a friend who would storm hell if you asked it." 

Two days after the events just narrated, the captain left Spratling, 
the pedagogue, and lieutenant not far from our pickets, and with the 
journalist and the two soldiers captured by Spratling at Starnes' and 
the two bushwhackers found with the lieutenant, proceeded to General 
Cleburne's head-quarters. Every leading incident of the preceding 
month was here narrated, and the general, as requested, applied for 
passports required for the use of the paroled lieutenant. When these 
came, two days later, from the provost marshal general, the captain 
returned to Spratling's bivouac. The journalist sought the encamp- 
ment of Pinson's Mississippi cavalry, having agreed to rejoin the 
captain when the schoolmaster returned from East Tennessee Avith 
Mamie Hughes. The editor was also to recover possession of his 
horse and spend a week, in the interim, with the Federal lieutenant at 
the home of the latter, below Tunnel Hill. Communication between 
all these was to be maintained through General Cleburne's head- 
quarters. 

Nothing is more intolerably irksome to those accustomed to daily 
newspaper work than the incomparably stupid and monotonous life of 
a soldier. Tattoo, reveille, dress-parade, drill, service on the out- 
posts or as sentinels, ditch-digging, greasy cards, musty, hard bread 
and tough beef, with no books and rarely a newspaper, are hourly 
facts that invest with horror, when nearly twenty years have elapsed, 
memories of life in camp. There is nothing to elevate or refine 



FAGOTS FROM THE CAMP FIRE. 113 

and everything to degrade, the intellects and tastes and brutalize 
one's habits and modes of thinking. There were many educated, 
excellent gentlemen, sons of rich cotton planters, acting as private 
soldiers in Pinson's regiment. Even among these the journalist said 
he heard stories hourly by the camp fire that shocked his sensibilities. 
The great evils of war are those that result from the separation of the 
sexes; husbands from wives, brothers from sisters, lovers from sweet- 
hearts. Vices consequent upon these facts are discovered in the 
homes of the people as well as in conversations on tented fields. 

To the very extent that woman gains potency in the church, in 
society, in social life, or in government, to that extent man as an 
individual and as a citizen is made worthier of God's approval. There 
is a divinity in woman that may be demonized by man, but while she 
remains herself she elevates, refines, and deifies our race. Her 
influence would be as beneficent in law and government as war 
showed it to be in social life; and woman's morals, tastes, and purity 
should be injected into the ballot-box. 

These memoranda, made concurrently with the events of which 
they tell, are now exploited that a new generation may have some 
inadequate apprehension of codes of morals and tastes and habits of 
every-day life that obtained everywhere in states that became seats of 
war. Many generals, and countless writers of every grade of intel- 
ligence and truthfulness have written of campaigns and battles. This 
unpretending volume only assumes to tell how soldiers and people 
talked and ate and slept and loved and hated when grim-visaged war 
stalked abroad leaving its blackest curse upon the morals of homes 
and churches and of woman. In digging graves for myriads of men 
whose depravity was as steadily progressive as the strokes of Death 
were violent, spasmodic, and numberless, War achieved least of its 
measureless calamities. 

Of the character of stories commonly told by camp fires I can not 
give a perfect illustration. The journalist, when he, Spratling, the 
captain, and the pedagogue had again met and were seated about 
blazing logs during a cold evening in February, 1864, with half a 
dozen cavalrymen— the journalist's brother among the number — 
assigned to temporary service as scouts — the journalist told a story 
that smacked of the morals of the age when Mars was the god of the 
people as of armies. 

" I was telling, some time ago, of my flight from Knoxville to 
Kingston and how I was forced," said the editor, "to win the favor 
and confidence of the people by becoming a preacher. I had spent 
three years at a theological college. My father proposed to make me 
an educated preacher. I did not assent; but thought that I would 
please him if possible. But the more I saw of preachers in embryo 
ttie less I was inclined to adopt their profession. I left theology and 
took to literature at the university, and thence, after I was graduated, 
was inducted into a law school. But I never forgot the forms or 

S 



n-} !• AuO IS I'KOM rill" r AMI" 1 IKl'. 

WssvM^s vM' the il\ev^los;io;U insiinxion. v^r [\\c two ov ihvcc sor\uons 1 
h;ul wvincn wiih i\M\i\\(c o>uv> How I pvonvMnuwl one o\ those 
vl>,M\NUV>o,s» ,\nvl i^^ crtVots. I w;\y toll uvmovvow nij;lu. 

"\ \\»>n the ootUhlet\v^o ot' ;t 5;ooi! Ttuon nuMhoilisi to such .m 
o\tot\t ;>t Kn\j;siv>t\. th;U, tluM));!^ 1 was a luptist. lu^ oonvoved me 
h\ hiijo w^\tion tvw^ntv miles to\\;\t>l Chaitatu^oga, TMivtiside's eav;\lr\ 
hv-'Ui tho v;uhY;n lvK>\v KnvAwillo a)\d 1 was loreed to n\;\ko a ,/f"A>///-, 
as Sv>vnvtlv exjila^novl. In way of Kingston. My mothodist friend 
x\Mnwen\le\l nH\ as a vWvout young Iviptist brotlier. to one Deacon 
A>^plega^v\ v>f vny ehnt\^h, wlvvse guest I now- beeame. With nnich 
shan>e(avwincss anvi n^^vvst \n>w-illinglY tlid I iv}x\At a prayer, night and 
"U the p\\\senK^c ot' the household and the more w-i^s 1 
when 1 went to ehuw^h AUvl was made to occupy a seat in 
;;\v ; > ;,.>vily man exjvundoii the scriptures to 

h',N ^. - "v^ vriVtivY the odious deception and 

wea. er course would have saveti me 

^Vy^v, .:ion. Having entered u}x>n the 

wvo)^gtu^ anvi lAise r^ne vM ivuiv^uct i darcvi not turn backward. I 
Aiv^ev^ Wv\5es;ly i'j'i the seni^x^s ajni then w\vs askevi to remain and 
w~;r.^es5i the ni^l by the chinvh v>f Jxiiu Adams, a 'good girl." so the 
>-xf:h5-e5^ .^5vi sistfi^ sa:idx but 'unt\vnwnau\" 1 inquiixxl of one of the 
h-j-ethiVi^ whether JuI^a w^^s to l>e iricci for Siorae ^misfortune,' He 
,^»SW^y5>4> wiith A 5\5^^4ed lo<>k:; 

'^ 'No? ,^v^^^otb ; H;: "I^^ s^^^^^iehow that \x-^'3v/ 

?".- A .■; >; ;\^' ;v > ;'-.;; ,^f . , . Vac Every churci! 

. ■ -\ • ■ .-■ .-: ■ --.s ••■. , ,'■ , yo^ang, is in\-ested 

... - - .cc.uos ,^ "xighi' — because 

. - . - , ,r. :"■'-.=.: :"^e good and aged 

. ~ . ■ X ^ ^ - . i, id\ised xhe 

. ^ ,:- ?c\r? rr g-o 

.xu. i c^. - . . - - - -. , - rs 

-vO jx:-^ ex:: - res::. He had airesded 

,< . . - - ■-. '-~ — - ~ ,. ,..- ..^r, :be gir. vas eigiteeB 

\'t-,i.:v - . ■ sTft-orti Io\~-er- Timiav h^ beaid 



r ^^es:•aL^ 



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irbo 'jn^ ■ ■ ' ;::isa^d^ £XiC ^rist *rr^ 



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iiccEikf;- See ber brn-er tesrs i- .-"ires: mts etic tbr r>ja-i: sDmnr 

" "Acircr srte smntec- S2.5 she ~i;c Tepettrec? l-oti; suti see '. ' 

she cDr:-±Dti£d- -2 noz'z -f^'f: jnc read jtcj rriCcSi- 
-£. TTr:: izDt'T' ^g- ^r-T.!;- riirnr: tie ^r^-ir. Tor 22^ 

■wddt'TT. Ezjottjer "C'cc T -':?- -wa; brrrnsirr iieir>re Gtc? W-tfrr ± "w^ 




ii6 FAGOTS FROM THE CAMP FIRE. 

" 'Let him who is witliout sin cast the first stone.' Who among 
you men or women dare cast the first stone at JuHa? ' 

" Here the old woman straightened herself up to her full height. 
Her great blue eyes dimmed by years, blazed with the fires of reno- 
vated youth. She shook her bony forefinger at the old preacher, and 
in deep tones and measured accents, said : 

" 'Brethren and sisters, it is my honest opinion, in the presence of 
Christ's example and of our own natures and of the fact that God 
made us and not we ourselves, that Sister Julia's is the foremostest sin 
that God Almighty will go about forgiving.' 

"The last were her precise, exact, earnest words. 

"Silence, profound and lasting, that followed, told of the eftects 
of her simple eloquence. The old preacher groaned audibly. 

"I observed that little ^Jimmy Applegate, as he sat in the pulpit, 
was in ecstasies. He rubbed his sunburnt hands together. His long 
hair was brushed away from his smiling nut-brown face. His tearful 
eyes shone lustrously and lovingly while he listened and watched 
intently each movement and caught every simple, earnest word that 
fell from the tremulous lips of wrinkled, time-worn Mrs, Ransom. 
Meanwhile, poor, unhappy Julia's eyes almost smiled through tears 
that stood still at last. 

"Her wretched mother stared wonderingly, amazed beyond 
measure that one woman had at last pitied and forgiven another. 

"There was protracted and death-like silence when Mrs. Ransom 
sat down. 

"At length Dr. Joe Prewitt, a gray-haired, most influential deacon, 
rose in his place, and said : 

"'Rretheren, there is no use talking. Sister Ransom is right. 
We forgot Christ. We forgot that none of us can "cast the first 
stone." I move that Sister Adams' name, she having repented of 
her sin, remain on the church book.' 

" 'Amen ! Amen ! Bless the Lord ! ' sang out the aged preacher. 

"The motion was carried, iiieni. con. The doxology was sung; 
the old preacher pronounced his benediction upon the assembly, and 
all were going out when Jimmy Applegate ran, and grasping the 
bony hand of Mrs. Ransom, kissed it. He then followed closely 
after Julia. I watched the little fellow whose tenderness and fidelity 
were even touching. He said to Julia, when she turned and kissed 
him : 

" 'The oldest and youngest of us, Mrs. Ransom and Jimmy, knew 
you were good and true and we loved you, and now everybody loves 
you, and you won't cry any more, will you, Julia?' 

"Julia again kissed her big-hearted, honest little lover, as tenderly 
and gratefully as she did the aged Mrs. Ransom who came to bid 
her good bye, and tell her to be a 'good girl' and she would ]iever 
want friends. 

"I am much inclined to believe, boys," said the editor, "after 
studying her sweet, pretty face and watching the tears that fell from 



FAGOTS FROM THE CAMP FIRE. 117 

her great blue eyes, that Juha Adams is still one of the best and 
truest and most stainless of her sex. Her soul, if not her body, is 
uncontaminated, and I must say that until I heard Mrs. Ransom's 
simple, earnest defence of Julia, I had never translated liberally the 
words that fell from Jesus' lips : 

' ' ' Qui sine peccato est prius in illam lapideni niittet. ' 
''It is hardly necessary to say that the venerable dame, Mrs. 
Ransom, gave to the proper translation of these words a specific 
application to the offence she discussed, perhaps wholly unwarranted. 
' He who is without sin' can condemn the guilty. It is not asserted 
that he who is guiltless of this special offence is alone fit to pronounce 
sentence upon the weak, unfortunate, and fallen." 



CHAPTER XVIII. 



Death of Major General Van Dorn.— A True Story and Sad Enough. — The Northern 
Version. 

The lieutenant, while we were resting at noon, was telling that he 
was sent at one time on special duty and as a bearer of dispatches to 
New Madrid in Southeastern Missouri. He said that, returning to 
Nashville, he was accompanied by an old citizen of Spring Hill, a. 
village thirty miles, perhaps, southwest of Columbia, in Tennessee. 
My newly made friend was a sensible, sturdy farmer, who, it seems, 
had been a surgeon in the United States Army. His account of the 
killing of the Confederate Major General Van Dorn greatly interested 
me. I had been reading of this terrible affair in northern newspapers, 
one of which stated truthfully that Van Dorn in all physical and social 
respects was a perfect knight, belonging to the middle ages rather than 
to modern times. He was quite young when killed, — perhaps thirty- 
six, — but had been distinguished in the old army, before the war, as a 
peerless Indian fighter. Marvelous statements are told of his horse- 
manship and how he would ride down upon Commanches, Navajahoes, 
and other bands, sabering right and left. 

" On the field of battle he was the coolest man I ever saw," said the 
doctor. "Often when I have felt sick at the stomach and wanted to 
compress my shoulders and ribs into a little space, I have seen Van 
Dorn sit there under a rain of bullets, absolutely enjoying himself. 
He was a knightly fellow to look at. His hair was a clear golden 
color, and in natural ringlets, it fell around his shoulders and neck 
and looked like a King Charles wig. He had a rich golden mustache 
which sprung across the whole upper part of his face, and then he 
wore a chin whisker. He had the softest blue eyes, clean-cut features, 
and good teeth. He was rather below middle size and a splendid 
horseman and man-at-arms. Besides, he could blush like a girl. 



FAGOTS FROM THE CAMP FIRE. 119 

This, with his winning address, made him absohitely irresistible 
among women. Wherever he went, they gave way. 

" He was one of the kw men in either army that could sing and 
play musical instruments with a sweet, rich voice and accomplished 
hand. He wrote poetry. In his dress he was neat as a pin. As 
soon as he entered a household his bearing attracted, his address 
delighted, his accomplishments made the woijien worship him, and I 
am sorry to say that he was a lawless roue. 

"His father was an old Mississippi judge, and I suppose of Dutch 
descent. The old man was just about the son's size, and often used 
to come over to our camp, and he was almost invariably full of 
vrhiskey. One da}- he said to me, ' Doctor, do you hear what some of 
these chaps liave been saying about me — that I drink a good deal of 
whiskey? They don't know, doctor, what an unquenchable thirst I 
have ! ' Van Dorn had married in Alabama, I think, and his conduct 
aggrieved his wife, although I believe she sent for his body after his 
death and took it back to iVlabama and buried it on her farm, in a 
field, where I suppose lie lies without a stone. 

•• Doctor Peters was a practicing physician at Spring Hill. He had 
married his second wife, considerably younger than himself — a giddy, 
pretty woman. It was absolutely certain that when such a creature 
should be seen by A"an Dorn, and listened to him, there would be a 
flirtation and perhaps an intrigue. It happened of course. Peters 
was one of those silent, deadly men you meet with in Tennessee and 
derivative states ; he had a pair of cold gray eyes, which in ordinary 
times were nearly expressionless, but would start up demoniacally. 
Inflict a personal wrong on such a person and he would be worse than 
an Indian. He had a lean, listless look, but turned into iron when 
excited. Van Dorn came into this vicinity laboring under a bad 
reputation. He had been accused of seducing two fair daughters of 
Vicksburg, and it was said of him at Memphis that with the family of 
a leading citizen there, mother and daughter, he had been treacherous. 
Van Dorn didn't care about it. He lived in his own personality and 
believed, to some extent, that all within his command was his. I 
mention these f^icts to answer your question as to whether he was 
much regarded. By those of his officers who had received his favors 
and knew him intimately he was lamented, but by the general public 
and by public opinion, I think not. 

"He rose very rapidly in the Mexican war from second lieutenant 
to be a captain at Cerro Gordo and a major at Cherubusco. From 
the very beginning he was one of the most dauntless ofiicers in our 
army. I think I am in error about his age. I believe he was born 
in 1823. In 1858, in an attack on the Commanches, he killed fifty-six 
Indians, and was dangerously wounded in four places. No man in 
the old army was more intense in his devotion to slave property on 
account of his family, marriage, birth, and temperament. As Early 
as January, 1861, he resigned his commission, became a colonel in 
the Confederate service, and took a leading part in Texas in capturing 



I20 FAGOTS FROM THE CAMP FIRE. 

other regulars. He took the Star of the West steamer, received the 
sword of Major Sibley, and almost immediately became a major 
general, when he was put in charge of the Trans-Mississippi District. 
He fought his leading battle, which was a reverse, at Pea Ridge. 

"Van Dorn was a favorite of Mr. Jefferson Davis, and had coni- 
mand in the battle at Corinth, which was also unfortunate in results. 
He was court-martialed at that time. 

"Afterward he had hfs head-quarters at Spring Hill several weeks. 
I am of the belief that nothing criminal happened between himself 
and this woman, Mrs. Peters, though I do not acquit him of bad 
intentions. The woman, however, but recently wedded to Peters, 
had sufficiently inspired his mind with the idea that a criminal intrigue 
had commenced. Peters then deliberately arranged the assassination 
of Van Dorn and his own escape. He established relays of horses to 
carry him into the Federal lines by rapid flight. He went from his 
house to Van Dorn's cjuarters, and, saying that he had some business 
just inside the Federal lines, would like to have a pass to get through. 
Probably glad to get him out of reach, with that interesting wife 
behind him, Van Dorn cheerfully consented, and leaned forward on 
his desk to write the pass, and signed his name to it. At this moment 
Dr. Peters, leaning on the desk on his left hand, drew his pistol while 
Van Dorn was leaning forward over his signature, and shot the 
general through the spinal marrow at the back of the head. The 
ball did not pierce the brain but produced paralysis, and he died in 
two hours. Peters seized the pass, got on his horse, and was far on 
the road to the Federal lines before it was discovered that Van Dorn 
had been shot. One of his staff coming in, found him leaning over 
the table muttering incoherently, and bleeding. They placed him on 
a lounge and heard him say, 'Peters has murdered me.' 

"Peters passed into the Federal lines. There it was no harm to 
have killed Van Dorn. He was not molested. After the war it was 
not thought proper to indict him for a murder committed during 
hostilities under the circumstances. He condoned his wife's offence 
at the end of the war, and took her back, and they moved to 
Arkansas. In a little while the woman began to coquette again, and 
again aroused Peters' ire. He took her next supposed paramour by 
the chin, with a bowie-knife in the other hand, and literally guillotined 
him. That is the last known of Dr. Peters." 

Such is the story that has been popularized in northern newspapers. 
It is untrue in every respect. The assertion that Peters, after killing 
Van Dorn, cut the throat of a lover of his wife in Arkansas is a sheer 
fabrication. He is a quiet, sober, unobtrusive, educated gentleman, 
and he and his wife have never been talked about save because of the 
killing of Van Dorn. He was an ardent secessionist and had been a 
leading member of the Tennessee legislature. After killing Van Dorn^ 
he fled to Nashville, pursued by Van Dorn's staff officers. 

"When he came to Nashville, I happened to be there," continued 
Lieutenant Hughes. "He was brought before General Rosecrans, to 



FAGOTS FROM THE CAMP FIRE. 121 

whom he applied for a passport to St. Louis. The general at first 
refused because Peters had been a conspicuous secessionist in the 
legislature of Tennessee. But Governor Brownlow and ex-Governor 
William B. Campbell interposed in Peters' behalf, and the passport 
was conceded. 

"Peters recited the story, in my presence, of the taking off of Van 
Dorn. He suspected the progress of an intrigue. He knew Van Dorn's 
character and Peters' wife was famed for her personal charms, exqui- 
site taste in dress, taste and coquetry. At Ben Weller's boarding 
house, on Cherry Street in Nashville, where Brownlow and Campbell 
lived, I heard Peters tell that he had suspected Van Dorn's infamous 
purposes, and in order to satisfy himself as to the facts, he announced 
his intention to be absent from home several days. He made every 
preparation for a journey, but returned the night of the day of his 
departure, and concealed himself in the ice-house, where he remained 
till about midnight. He then heard Van Dorn's horse's feet and soon 
afterward, the clanking of Van Dorn's heavy spurs as he came upon 
the back porch. Van Dorn himself had given Peters a passport 
through the Confederate lines, that he might enter Kentucky. 

"Peters ascended the ladder from the ice-pit, and looking out. beheld 
Van Dorn's plumed hat. At this instant, as the Confederate chieftain 
entered the house, admitted by the wife, Peters having a pistol in his 
hand, was almost impelled to kill both the wife and her lover. But 
instead, Peters only followed quietly, and telling Van Dorn, ' Now, 

you d d scoundrel, I have caught you, but I will spare your life 

and prevent gossip and the degradation of this woman and the stain 
upon my fame if you will write and sign the statement that you have 
corrupted my wife.' 

"Van Dorn hesitated, but the cold steel gleamed in Peters' eyes and 
the cocked pistol was ready to do its deadly office, and Van Dorn 
said, T will sign the paper.' 

"Next morning Peters called at Van Dorn's marquee. Van Dorn 
asked Peters what he proposed to do with the paper to be signed by 
himself. Peters replied that its contents should never be known to 
the public, but that he would take it to Richmond and learn whether 
the Confederate government were base enough and so depraved that 
it invested men with high offices and honors who professionally 
debauched the wives and daughters of those serving the government, 
however humbly, with tireless fidelity. 

" 'Van Dorn asked me,' said Peters, 'to wait till two o'clock, when 
he would certainly execute the paper as I required. I am satisfied 
now that he thought that my passion would be dispelled by the lapse 
of a few hours and that he would easily escape the necessity I sought 
to impose. At two, p. m., I was again at Van Dorn's tent. His 
adjutant general was with him. This gentleman withdrew at once 
and Van Dorn and I were alone together. I had not attempted to 
kill Van Dorn in my own home and had postponed the final concession 
of my exactions, and Van Dorn thought there was no risk at last in 



122 FAGOTS FROM THE CAMP FIRE. 

refusing to do as he had promised. I had the fleetest, finest horse in 
Tennessee at hand. I did not know what was coming and did not 
intend, in any event, to be caught by Van Dorn's stipendiaries and 
clerks. 

" 'When I approached Van Dorn, he said, quietly, that he had 

concluded not to give me any such "G — d d d paper" as I 

required. Then I answered,' said Peters, "You are a d d 

scoundrel," and shot him before he rose up. The bullet, I think, 
broke his neck. I rode several hundred yards before the alarm was 
given. Van Dorn's staff-officers and several soldiers pursued me. I 
don't think they were very anxious to catch me. I could not have 
been taken alive and was so armed that I was dangerous, and they 
knew it.' 

"But Rosecrans was finally induced, as I have stated," said the 
lieutenant, "by Governor Brownlow and ex-Governor W. B. Camp- 
bell to grant the passport asked for by Peters, and the reason given 
was that though Peters was a devout secessionist and for this might 
properly be hanged, yet he had done God and the country such a service, 
by ridding the earth of Van Dorn, that Peters deserved well of his 
country and race. Peters did not believe that his wife was debauched 
but Van Dorn's criminality was none the less. He did not even 
deny his purpose. Peters' forbearance grew out of this fact and 
that other that he sought to evade scandal-mongers and newspaper 
notoriety." 

It is needless to say that, like the lieutenant, his listeners approved 
Dr. Peters' conduct; and, therefore, the people concurring with us in 
opinion. Dr. Peters was never prosecuted. 

This story is told not made because of its reference to prominent 
men of the war period ; but, like many other narratives in this 
volume, to illustrate the force and direction and training of public 
opinion in the South. 



CHAPTER XIX. 



The Song that destroj'ed the Confederacy and dissolved its Armies. — Most Remark- 
able Military Expedition of which Human History Tells or Genius ever Conceived 
or Executed. — The Memorable Campaign of Moral Effects. — Its Painful and 
Pitiful Results.— An Apparition. — The Great Explosion in Knoxville. — Death 
of Bill Carter. 

The pedagogue was a delightful raconteur. Though his stories were 
tinctured always, and naturally enough, with his political prejudices, 
we were never offended. In fact, the old Whigs and Union men 
in the Confederate service often gave expression to views never 
tolerated among officers and placeholders. With the common soldiers 
the people sympathized, and when, in 1863-4, the whole country vv-as 
singing a lackadaisical, sorrowful ditty, with the refrain, 

"When this cruel war is over, 
Maryland, my Maryland ! " 

the people were thoroughly beaten. There was nothing to commend 
the horrible, dolorous ditty except its invocation of peace, and yet 
every child, negro, and woman was singing it. Men went humming it 
to the fields and workshops, and soldiers, catching the sickly, pitiful 
melody, that over-ran more pitiful words, deserted their colors till Mr. 
Jefferson Davis, at Macon, Georgia, announced, in the spring or early 
summer of 1864, that two-thirds of his soldiers had deserted their 
colors. It made one's heart sick to hear everywhere of the woes of 
military despotism and this heart-rending cry for peace that came 
welling up in this wretched song from the great fountain of popular 
griefs. The vigorous, heroic verses of Father Ryan, of Lide Merri- 
wether, and of Harry Timrod, and John Mitchell's eloquent portrayal 
of the woes of "conquered" Ireland, availed nothing. The common 
people persistently sang the dolorous ditty, and the Confederacy was 
undone. Spratling began to recite, "'Maryland, my Maryland," his 



124 FAGOTS FROM THE CAMP FIRE. 

deep, strong, musical voice investing 'the monotonous music with a 
share of attractiveness, when the schoolmaster quoted the philosopher 
who said that "he is master of the country who writes its songs and 
not he who makes its laws." Spratling was silenced and the peda- 
gogue began to tell of the marvelous campaign of moral effects to 
which he had alluded in former conversations. He said that Leadbetter, 
in Eastern Tennessee, a Confedederate Department Commander, in 
1862-3, was weak, violent, and tyrannical. The post commander at 
Knoxville, Morrisette, was an artillery officer. He had been reared a 
banker's clerk, was a speculator, broker, and auctioneer. He had 
never fired a gun or pistol, and when appointed captain of artillery 
and given in charge six, and then twelve, field-pieces, had never seen 
a battery. Of course he knew absolutely nothing of gunnery or of 
artillery drill and practice. He selected as his first lieutenant one 
Baker, an elcve of a German military school and an adept in the art of 
war. I used to attend the dress parades of this "Morrisette Battery" 
to watch the captain's efforts to catch the whispered words of com- 
mand given by Baker. Then Morrisette would repeat the words in 
the swelling, sonorous accents of a brigadier. When the "manual of the 
piece" was gone through with and duties of dress parade were dis- 
charged, then Morrisette, arrayed in all the feathers and toggery of 
glorious war and mounted on a magnificent charger, would lead his 
battery, guns, caissons, and men and horses through the streets of 
staring, wondering Knoxville. 

Morrisette told me that the "moral effect upon the disloyal popula- 
tion of the place was very fine." I used to think the moral effect of 
Leadbetter' s profuse administration of the oath of loyalty most unfor- 
tunate. ■ In this, Morrisette concurred. But Leadbetter was singularly 
well pleased when Morrisette' s polished guns went gleaming through 
the streets in the gorgeous sunlight of East Tennessee. Bootblacks, 
newsboys, and idlers about the bar-rooms swore roundly, when 
Morrisette strutted by, that his was the finest, bravest battery in the 
world. 

Morrisette would look neither to the right nor left. He was intent 
on duty. His bosom was swelling with emotions of purest patriotism. 
He was the impersonation of lofty aspirations, and every inch a soldier. 
He was small of stature, had a huge nose and little legs, and dressed 
gorgeously. While Morrisette v,-as thus appealing to the fears of 
Lhiion men, Leadbetter Avas briskly imprisoning their consciences by 
"swearing them in," and East Tennessee was slowly lapsing, it 
seemed, into secessionism. 

The jail, meanwhile, was full to overflowing. A magistrate of the 
place named Tillson, a vulgar, ignorant, noisy, whiskey-drinking 
fellow, became the partner of a vigorous lawyer of the town. A cav- 
alry commander was also interested in the cruel, nefarious business. 

The magistrate asserting jurisdiction in political cases, mountains 
and valleys were searched and every suspected individual was arrested, 
without warrant, by the cavalryman Blackburne and brought before 



FAGOTS FROM THE CAMP FIRE. 125 

the red-haired "squire." This grave and solemn sot always advised 
"culprits" to see the "great and good lawyer," who managed to scare 
simple people till they gave him all their money. Now and then he 
acquired a pretty farm in compensation for arduous "professional 
services. ' ' 

I was at the Lamar House late in the afternoon, when Blackl:)urne, 
the lawless myrmidon of the squire, brought in twenty or more 
"disloyal people." Colonel Casey Young, now an ex-M. C. and then 
Adjutant General on the staff of Brigadier General William H. Car- 
roll, happened to be on the street when Blackburne came with his 
prisoners. He was accustomed to deliver them to Fox, the jailor, 
another "good and true man" of the period, so called in official 
papers at department headquarters. Dismayed and hel})less, these 
Union men were moving toward Fox's dungeons. Colonel Young 
addressed one of them, an intelligent preacher — a presbyterian, I 
think. I heard him say that he had been teaching school and preach- 
ing and had nothing to do with war ; that he never spoke of it, but 
devoted himself to the service of (jod, his church, and his pupils. 
Colonel Young at once instructed the guards to leave this gentleman 
at the hotel. It was understood that the facts affecting his arrest 
would be investigated next morning. The preacher's two daughters, 
charming girls, had followed him to Knoxville. Late at night they 
came weeping to Colonel Young's apartment. The lawyer and the 
jailor. Fox, were in their father's room. They had given the lawyer 
a thousand dollars in gold which they had brought from home to save 
their father from Fox's clutches. The lawyer demanded more. 

Young, half dressed, went to the preacher's room. The lawyer had 
disappeared, but the pug-nosed, squarely built jailor was with the pris- 
oner, and in the act of leading him to jail, as instructed by the justice 
of the peace at the instigation of the learned lawyer. Young ordered 
Fox to leave the hotel, telling him that if he imprisoned political 
offenders under a mittimus from a state court, he (Young) would have 
him shot. Fox slunk away ; but the lawyer still enjoys riches that 
sprang from the hard-earned ^1,000 filched from these pretty presby- 
terian girls. 

Next morning I visited the jail. Young had frightened Fox, who 
was a cringing supplicant when I entered the prison yard. He was 
made to understand how he was violating the law in obeying the mag- 
istrate's decrees. Fox said that a prominent lawyer of the town 
(naming him) was the magistrate's adviser, and that he, the poor jailor, 
knew nothing about it. On the contrary. Fox robbed each prisoner 
mercilessly, and starved those who were without money, so they 
stated, remorselessly. Those suspected of having money or known to 
have rich friends were consigned to the iron cage till Fox's exactions 
were complied with. Mr. William Hunt, many years clerk and 
master of the chancery court at Cleveland, was robbed of four thousand 
dollars by Fox and his associates in the nefarious business. Mr. Hunt 
said that a secessionist furnished him part of the money with which he 



126 FAGOTS FROM THE CAMP FIRE. 

finally bought his liberty. There was never a jailor so abhorred by 
prisoners as this man Fox. I may do him injustice, since I tell what 
I heard from his victims. I would not wrong his memory, but there 
Avas joy in many modest homes in bright, peaceful valleys of East 
Tennessee when Burnside captured Fox at Bristol and consigned him 
to his own iron box in the jail at Knoxville. A kw days later, when 
the turnkey made his usual rounds, he found Fox dead in his cage. 
Nobody seemed to care about it, and I never learned whether he 
committed suicide, as was rumored, or died of terror. He feared, 
when he fled from Knoxville, that the people of East Tennessee would 
wreak vengeance upon him for the outrages and robberies practiced 
by himself, the lawyer, the magistrate, and the cavalry leader. Hence 
the story that he took poison. The magistrate of whom I tell died a 
frightful death in Texas. Raving mad, tortured by visions of help- 
less women begging for mere}' for those they loved, pursued b}- 
hideous phantoms to which whiskey gives birth and clothes with 
nameless terrors, the wretched man cursed God and himself and was 
no more. The lawyer, who profited most b}' the crimes of Fox and 
the justice of the peace, still lives, but not in Knoxville. 

Among prisoners at this time in Fox's charge was William G. 
Brownlow, afterward governor and United States Senator. He was 
emaciated to the last degree. I remember that he showed me a 
"running seaton" on his breast and said that his condition was such 
that, if he were not taken from the cold, comfortless prison and sup- 
plied with better food, he would soon die. In the same apartment 
with Mr. Brownlow were many farmers, Confederate deserters, and 
all classes of people, victims of Fox's cupidity. Colonel Young, in 
conversing with these people, became satisfied that their imprisonment 
was needless as well as lawless and wrongful. The next day there was 
a general jail delivery. Brownlow himself was sent to his residence 
on Cumberland Street, and not many weeks later, when his health 
was somewhat improved, in charge of an escort commanded b)^ 
Colonel Young and Captain O'Brien, he was sent through Chatta- 
nooga and Shelbyville to Nashville, then occupied by Union armies. 
Curious, staring, wondering, and untraveled southern soldiers hearing 
that the famous editor, preacher, and Unionist, Brownlow, was on 
the train at Chattanooga, sought to discover his identity. One of 
them, bolder than the rest, gained access to Brownlow' s car and asked 
Brownlow himself, pale, wan, and mild-mannered as he was, to desig- 
nate the terrible parson. Brownlow pointed to Colonel Young. 
"Johnny Reb" stared at Young a moment most intently and then,, 
drawing a long sigh, exclaimed : 

"Well it beats Judas Iscariot, by G — d." 

Brownlow laughed till his life was almost despaired of, but I never 
heard that Colonel Young, confessedly good-looking as he is, enjoyed 
the joke. 

I began this story to illustrate evils incident to military govern- 
ment conducted with a view to moral rather than physical results. 



FAGOTS FROM THE CAMP FIRE. 127 

Morrisette and Leadbetter proposed to achieve the conquest of East 
Tennessee by every species of moral force, in which the one would 
make a parade of power, the other employing moral suasion. In both 
instances there was only a grand parade. Neither ever snuffed the 
breath of battle. When that fatal day at Fishing Creek dawned upon 
the hapless South, when Zollicoffer fell, a part of Morrisette' s battery 
escaped from the wreck, but Morrisette himself was still commanding 
the fort and holding it bravely one hundred and fifty miles away, at 
Knoxville. When those daring, adventurous men who were hanged 
in Atlanta seized the railway train at Big Shanty, below Chattanooga, 
and leaving the passengers at breakfast, came north, tearing away 
bridges and culverts behind them that General Mitchell might capture 
Chattanooga, it being impossible to draw reinforcements from the 
south, Leadbetter was in Chattanooga almost frightened to death. 
He was never nearer the enemy or in greater danger than on that 
occasion. Of his conduct and of a memorable incident that befell the 
ragged town of that day the reader has been informed. 

But Morrisette and Leadbetter in Knoxville finally grew weary of 
inaction. The latter found the task of ceaseless administration of 
oaths of loyalty tiresome. The people had already pronounced it 
exceedingly monotonous. Morrisette's battery — that portion of it 
which did not accompany Crittenden and Zollicoffer to Fishing 
Creek — when it went rattling and roaring along the stony streets of 
Knoxville, no longer attracted the slightest attention. In this des- 
perate condition of affairs, Morrisette planned a grand expedition 
into Chucky ^"alley. Along the little river of this name, were pretty 
farms and delightful homes. Here, in Washington County, David 
Crockett was born, and the people were devoted to the "old 
flag." 

They had never seen the new, and loved the Federal Union as our 
fathers made it. They were sons and grandsons of men who 
fought at King's Mountain and Eutaw Court-House. Their prayer 
was to be let alone. They were unwilling to fight their neighbors 
and kindred and had pledged themselves, in private conversations at 
methodist and baptist meeting-houses, never to strike down the stars 
and stripes. In every house there was Weems' " Life of Washington," 
Jefferson's "Notes on Virginia," the National Intelligencer, and 
Brownlow's Whig. Morrisette and Leadbetter had often been told of 
the charms of Chucky Valley and of the devout L-nionism of the 
people. The two Confederate chieftains, wielding absolute power in 
East Tennessee, conferred secretly about it. With profound solem- 
nity and injunctions of secrecy, they held several councils of war. 
They consulted Lieutenant Colonel Hugh Green, the rollicking, fun- 
loving leader of a half-drilled, half-armed regiment encamped at 
Knoxville. All, for one or another reason, approved the grand 
scheme of Morrisette and Leadbetter, and it was agreed to show the 
innocent dwellers along the banks of the bright and brawling Chucky 
how great and powerful was the mighty Richmond government. 



128 FAGOTS FROM THE CAMP FIRE. 

Chucky Valley would thenceforth be ashamed that it had dreamed of 
resistance to the authority of Jefferson Davis. 

pjill Carter was from Nashville. He was brave. He had fought 
many battles, in each of which he fell, but rose again, only to fall 
whenever he met his mortal enenn-. Whiske\- slew him at last in a 
frightful conflict that occurred in Knoxville. Bill was found dead one 
morning in the gutter, his eyes bloodshot, hair matted, clothes in 
tatters, and shoes, like those who gave him whiskey, soleless. He was 
reared a lawyer and thoroughly educated. He was the only child of 
his parents, inherited a good estate, and won a beautiful wife. Five 
years afterward, Bill was a beggar and his wife soon hapi)ilv di\orced 
by Bill's death. 

Meanwhile, Bill was General Crittenden's orderlv. Crittenden 
loved Bill for his weaknesses as well as wit. There were broad realms 
of sympathy in which they met. Both worshipped Bacchus. Bill 
was uglier than this god, who had distorted Bill's features. A horse 
had kicked and broken the lower maxillary bone on one side of his 
face, and a drunken Patlander had fractured the same bone on the 
other, and the two sides of this jaw-bone had been separated from one 
another until the lower part of Bill's face was a foot wide. His long 
nose was ]Dressed upward b\- toothless gums. He ate with difficult}- 
and, therefore, drank enormously. But he talked well and wittily. 
The slightest provocation to mirth emanating from a hairy turtle set uj> 
on end would surely provoke infinite laughter, and Bill's face had 
been compressed and widened till one always had visions of turtle 
soup while Bill poured forth the contents of an exhaustless vocabulary. 
Bill, in Crittenden's absence, had attached himself, as a sort of vol- 
unteer aide-de-camp, to Morrisette. In fact I heard him telling Mor- 
risette, with great solemnity that he would be his Sancho Panza in the 
coming Chucky campaign. 

Lieutenant Colonel Hugh Green had about six hundred good men. 
Of these Leadbetter took command. Leadbetter insisted that he must 
have artillery. Morrisette, giving him two brass six-pounders, had 
four left, in charge of about one hundred men. They moved slowly 
across the country from Morristown, firing morning and evening 
guns. The roar of artillery, both commanders insisted, exercised a 
fine "moral effect" upon a rebellious people. 

It may be proper to state that I did not participate in this most 
eventful and disastrous campaign. I am indebted for the facts to 
memoranda made by Morrisette and to recitals of those who returned 
safely to Knoxville. 

Having reached the seat of war, Morrisette followed the course of 
the River, while Leadbetter marched on a parallel and converging 
line three miles from the stream. Morrisette moved along the base of 
mountainous precipices next to the river, the shining guns reflected in 
its crystal waters. Leadbetter and Lieutenant Colonel Green, on steeds 
splendidly caparisoned, and in all the pomp and circumstance of 
glorious war, went careerins: across the countrv. The^• were stared at 



FAGOTS FROM THE CAMP FIRE. 129 

by women, and unkempt, wondering children. Fearing conscription, 
the men of the country, it was observed by the leaders of the expe- 
dition, were never visible. It was concluded at first that they had 
fled into the mountains; and, secondly, that an attack by night upon 
the forces of the Confederacy was contemplated by the innocent 
country bumpkins of Chucky Valle)-. 

Soon after the sun went down, the moon, full-orbed, came up in 
gorgeous glory. The air is clearer in East Tennessee — bereft of 
moisture, as it is, by mountains on every hand — than elsewhere in the 
United States. It may be as transparent for like reasons in Western 
Texas and Southern Colorado, but the stars are brighter and the moon 
shines more lustrously down into the valleys and gilds the hills, and 
sheds a softer, sweeter radiance upon the rivers of East Tennessee, 
investing mountains and valleys with a diviner splendor, than elsewhere 
in America. When moon and stars were borne away on bounding, 
sparkling waves of the boisterous river, Morrisette, unconsciously 
charmed by the scene and wedded to the spot, turned majestically in 
his saddle and ordered a halt. The air of November was cold, clear, 
and crisp, and the soldiers soon lighted fires along the perpendicular 
banks of the rapid river. Twenty feet away the mountains rose up 
precipitously, almost overhanging the stream. In the next valley, 
two and a half miles distant, Leadbetter and Green had encamped. 
It soon occurred to Morrisette, Avho sat like Agamemnon, gloomily 
in his tent, that he had selected unwisely a spot for his resting place. 
'■ Lincolnites," as adherents of the Union were termed in the vulgar 
partisan jargon of the time, might readily overwhelm him and even 
crush his beautiful brass field-pieces by rolling stones down the mountain 
sides. A bird, disturbed by the flames in the valley, rose out of its 
nest, and countless stones, their number growing as they descended, 
almost overwhelmed Morrisette's pretty tent. He could not sleep. 
That Leadbetter might know where he was, he ordered a field-piece 
to be discharged. 

The concussion shook the hills, and countless stones came leaping 
into the valley. Leadbetter, inferring that Morrisette was assailed, 
fired his guns that the enemy might be aware of his presence and 
power. Morrisette's guns responded; and thus, in the solemn, still, 
bright November night of 1861, was the "Campaign of Moral Effects" 
signalized by furious cannonading in the silent, happy valley of 
Chucky. The listening people, thinking the rebels amused themselves 
wasting gunpowder, slept well. But Morrisette and Leadbetter were 
thoroughly alarmed. Each believed the other involved in a desperate 
conflict, and both fired away furiously. At length each was silent 
that he might hear from the other and profound stillness rested upon 
river, mountains, and valley. 

It was after midnight when Morrisette's soldiers slept nervously 
beside camp fires and guns. He himself was haunted by the demon 
of unrest. He was not satisfied that bushwhackers were not hidden 
among the stunted cedars and great stones on mountain sides above 

9 



I30 FAGOTS FROM THE CAMP FIRE. 

his head. His nerves were unstrung, and he wandered forth to assure 
himself that sentinels were at their posts. 

He had seen the one most distant from his encampment and was 
coming away when he heard the voice of Bill Carter. He stopped 
and saw Carter proffer a canteen to the sentinel. The musket 
dropped, the canteen was eloquent, and Carter and the sentinel silent. 
Carter's canteen thus gave the countersign. He entered, having a 
dozen like it filled with whiskey and brandy distilled in the mountains. 
Carter was heavily freighted, too, with fowls. Morrisette watched 
him as he staggered into the encampment. He reeled along and 
soon slept soundly beside a glowing camp fire. An orderly named 
Villere was dispatched to Carter's resting place with instructions to 
empty the canteens, otherwise half of the command would become 
intoxicated before breakfast. Villere, finding Carter asleep, baptised 
him and the chickens in whiskey and brandy. Carter's clothes, hair, 
and whiskers were thoroughly saturated. 

Villere and his master at last rested, and Carter slept profoundly. 

Carter's baptised birds were not comfortable. They fluttered about 
the fire, and at length, blue flames danced over one and then another 
of the frightened, roasting poultry, fastened to Carter by cords that 
confined their legs. Lambent blue lights danced at last over his 
garments and played over his thick, heavy hair and whiskers. He 
screamed, rose up, blinded, frightened, and dumfounded. Each 
chicken was a fluttering great blue torch-light, and a column of blue 
flame rose far above Carter's head. He shrieked and ran blindly 
along the river's edge. Sentinels fired their guns. Every man was 
on his feet. 

The devil, robed in flames, fresh from abodes of the damned, was 
before their eyes. Carter's senses partially restored, he leaped into 
the river. But the encampment was "stampeded." Everybody 
sought to be first to escape from the infernal presence. Morrisette 
and Villere alone knew that Carter, wrapped in flickering blue flames 
of alcohol, innocently personated the Evil One. There was no time 
for explanations. "The devil take the hindmost," was the literal 
impulse that moved Morrisette's unlettered command. It was hope- 
lessly dispersed. All eff"orts to rally the discomfited soldiery were 
unavailing. 

When straggling soldiers of the dispersed battery, engaged in the 
grand "Campaign of Moral Effects," came in pairs and trios, ragged, 
hungry, and foot-sore, into Knoxville, I enquired eagerly for news 
from their noble commander. His soldiers were unwilling to talk. 

"Where is your captain? Where is your battery? What has 
been the fate of the military expedition?" the first ever organized 
without the remotest design of hurting anybody. 

I finally induced a moody, silent Irishman who had utterly 
refused to talk, to accompany me to my private apartment. I gave 
him a gill of whiskey, and promising another, asked him what had 
happened. 



FAGOTS FROM THE CAMP FIRE. 131 

The Irishman's face wore an aspect of profound melancholy. I 
had never before seen, outside of the confessional, a truly solemn 
Irishman. But, wiping his lips with his sleeve, and with wide open 
eyes, Mike said : 

" Captain, we won't talk because nobody will belave us ; but may the 
divel saze me if I didn't see him, wid eyes like braziers, breathing 
blue flames as he rose up out of the earth. He sazed the captain and 
ran away wid him, and laped into the river wid him, and the water 
biled. He shook the mountain, and stones and trees fell down upon 
us. Nobody but these you see here got away. Our guns and horses 
are all gone. The divel flew away wid 'em. The men fired at him, 
and bullets made holes through him, but he walked away all the same 
down the river and laped in at last, as I was tellin' ye." 

I asked Mike if it were possible that a campaign planned to produce 
"grand moral effects" had ended in a disgraceful drunken debauch. 

Mike answered that there was not a drunken soldier in Chucky 
Valley. 

1 sent Mike for his associates in flight. They came and con- 
curred in all that he had said. Each had seen a gigantic figure, 
clothed in blue flames, countless little angelic devils fluttering about 
it, rise out of the earth, shake the everlasting hills, and disappear 
in the blue waves of Chucky River. I was puzzled. Twelve sane, 
sober men, each examined separately, testified, with profound 
earnestness and unv/illingly, to the same extraordinary facts. These 
men never dreaming of desertion came as frightened fugitives from a 
terrible battle field. The Irishman was not free from superstition. 
His religion was mystical and vague, as well as formal and ceremonial. 
He was heard to say that if the devil was with the South, he would go 
north. He soon crossed the mountains, and afterward, in fighting 
the South, never doubted, I imagine, that he was "whackin" the 
devil that appeared in Chucky Valley. 

Some weeks elapsed, after the return of Leadbetter and Morrisette 
with the wreck of their demoralized forces, before any demonstration 
of military ardor was made. Leadbetter was less vehement and less 
active and earnest in administering oaths of loyalty than when 
planning the Chucky campaign. Morrisette's vanity had been sorely 
wounded. The people would talk and laugh. Bill Carter would 
pretend to be very drunk, and hairless and whiskerless as he was, his 
face terribly scarred by flames of alcohol that almost consumed his 
life, sauntered about head-quarters, reciting criticisms he heard in 
bar-rooms.. Bill was the great sufferer. He was, too, the innocent 
cause of the utter discomfiture and dissolution of Morrisette's com- 
mand. He hated Morrisette because he had ordered Villere to empty 
the whiskey-filled canteens. He had witnessed the flight of Morris- 
ette's terrified men. Though he had been painfully, and even 
dangerously burned and thoroughly frightened, he comprehended and 
enjoyed the supreme absurdity of the expedition. He sat many 
nights, surrounded by half-drunken listeners, telling with infinite 



132 FAGOTS FROM THE CAMP FIRE. 

delight, of the marvelous "Campaign of Moral Effects." Everybody 
in Knoxville had laughed again and again when Bill Carter, as chief 
of staff and Morrisette's Sancho Panza, recounted the story of absurd 
adventures. Morrisette knew all this, and for a time shrank from 
public gaze. Leadbettcr was moody, violent, and silent. But the 
pair of heroes finally talked the matter over. They had heard of 
Bill Carter's eloquent descriptions of the overthrow of the battery 
and discussed the propriety of having Carter consigned to the tender 
mercies of Fo.x, the jailor. 

But this would not silence Carter. He must be shot or conciliated. 
Pacific measures were preferred, and Carter was supplied with whiskey. 
ad UbUiini. He advised Morrisette to put on a bold face and show 
that he was unaffected by the absurd disaster. The result was that a 
grand dress parade was ordered for the next Sunday. 

It came, a cold December morning, when church bells were ringing 
and people, arrayed in the finery of peace, already fading in the 
presence of war, were going in pairs along the sunny streets. Morris- 
ette's battery, guns, caissons, horses, and men rattled and roared over 
the stony roadway from the hills in the suburbs down into the valley, 
ascending Gay Street into Knoxville. 

Idlers in throngs sauntered leisurely along the side-walks while 
Morrisette, glittering with gold lace and bestriding his gaily capar- 
isoned war horse, led the gorgeous column. 

It was a sad day for Morrisette. It was long to be remembered by 
many dwellers in Knoxville. He led the battery toward University 
Place, and turning to re-enter Gay Street, a caisson, filled with gun- 
powder and shells exploded. What caused the disaster no one ever 
knew. All the shells were not exploded at once, but forced in all 
directions, at intervals hurled fragments of iron into the air and into 
houses. Morrisette's men fled, as, not long before, in Chucky Valley. 
The battery was again dissolved. Artillerymen leaped from horses 
and from ammunition chests and hurried away. Morrisette, over- 
come, as he afterward explained, by "grief" and "rage," dismounted 
and in a private residence found relief in whiskey. Two men and 
four horses were killed and many persons injured, while Morrisette 
was so unnerved that he was unable to bestride his steed. 

He had enlisted only for a year, and his term of service expiring in 
1862, he retired to private life. 

Poor Bill ! His hair and whiskers had been burned off by flames 
of alcohol in Chucky Valley. His eyelids hideously red, he was of 
horrible aspect. Men gave him money to induce him to leave their 
presence. It was painful to look upon him, and therefore was he 
supplied with means of endless inebriety. The end came, as I have 
stated, and Bill, not long afterward, died in the gutter. 



CHAPTER XX. 



The Newspaper Man Tells of Recent Designations of the Route of De Soto. — His 
Apothecary's Scales and Nest of Horseshoes. — The Monk's Rosary .^ — Governor 
Gilmer's Castilian Dagger Handle. — Outline of De Soto's Route Defined. — 
His Burial Place. 

"A taste for archceological inquiries was rapidly developed, even in 
this country, until Dickens ridiculed its devotees mercilessly and suc- 
cessfully in his Pickwick Papers; but gentlemen of taste, learning, and 
leisure, like Alexander B. Meek, Benj. F. Porter, Joseph B. Cobb, 
and especially the late Governor and United States Senator from this 
'State, George R. Gilmer, were devoted to the prosecution of inquiries 
affecting primeval dwellers in America. I was reading a paragraph 
to-day," said the journalist, "in the Tallahassee {Y\a.. ) Sentinel, that tells 
of the discovery, two miles from that city, of a Spanish horseman's 
heavy spur. On either side of the rowel, an inch and a half in diameter, 
little bells dangled. Such spurs are still used in Mexico, and, I pre- 
sume, in Spain. More recently a farmer plowing in the field, and 
near the spot at which the spur v/as found, unearthed a solid, shape- 
less mass, which proved to be a bronze stirrup, of heavy, ancient 
pattern. It is as massive, relatively, as the spur. This stirrup was 
firmly imbedded in the ground, ancl thick coatings of rust enveloped 
it. Raised figures on the stirrup still stood out in strong relief. Its 
sides are Ethiopian statuettes, facing each other, and leaning for- 
ward till they almost meet. Their uplifted clasped hands hold the 
leathern strap that attached the stirrup to the saddle. The Florida 
editor says : ' So unlike are both these relics to anything known to 
this generation, and, both being found near the same place, it is not 
unreasonable to ascribe them to the same era and artisan. Nor is the sup- 
position at all improbable that one of the knightly followers of De 
Soto was allured on through this then unknown region and wilderness, 



134 FAGOTS FROM THE CAMP FIRE. 

like that dauntless son of Spain, by a thirst for yellow heaps of 
gleaming gold that loomed up ahead of them in vain visions and 
heated fancies, Here he fell a victim to the tomahawk and scalping- 
knife of the wronged and revengeful red man ; and, no doubt, some 
one of the "Tallahassee Tribe," of which "Tiger Tail " claimed to 
be a descendant, boasted, as he displayed at his belt a yet bloody 
scalp, that he had here killed a pale-face.' 

" Beyond the fact that trifling discoveries of this character define 
with a share of probable accuracy the route of De Soto, they have 
little value, and yet to such an extent is the taste for the old and 
curious indulged, that I am told I cannot secure this old stirrup and 
spur save at great cost. My purpose was to send models of them to 
Castelar, the Spanish scholar and statesman, that he might discover 
when and where such spurs and stirrups were manufactured. We 
should not forget, while noting the spot at which such remains of De 
Soto are found, that Indians may have stolen and lost this property of 
Spaniards, and it is not impossible that some Floridian, who served in 
the Mexican war of 1846-47, may have brought the spur and stirruj) 
from Mexico. Are there such evidences of decay that this supposi- 
tion cannot be well founded? 

"After Governor Gilmer had served many years ill each branch of the 
United States Congress, he devoted his old. age to the perfection of 
an archaeological and mineralogical cabinet. When a boy, I was often 
at his attractive home in the ancient village of Lexington, Georgia. 
The Spanish consul at Charleston visited the venerable statesman, 
who was not well enough to designate for the stranger the wonders of 
the cabinet. Of this I was telling the curious Spaniard all I knew, 
when he stopped me suddenly, and holding up a blood-red, beautiful 
carnelian between his fingers, asked whence it came. I had heard 
Governor Gilmer tell that it was plowed up by a negro in a field near 
Macon, Georgia. I remembered, too, that the governor had paid ten 
dollars for the stone and an old musket stock found about the same 
time, near the same spot. The stone was perforated longitudinally. 
Its length was about five and a half or six inches, and its transverse 
diameter about one and a half inches. The stone was very beautiful, 
but Governor Gilmer had no conception of its design as shaped, or of 
its value. He often wondered why it was .so deftly carved and what old 
race of artisans did this cunning work. He said it was strange that 
such an old-fashioned musket stock had been unearthed near the same 
spot. 

" 'This,' said the Spaniard, as I conducted him to Governor Gilmer's 
private apartment, ' is a Castilian dagger handle. Very few were 
ever made. Noblemen of Spain wore them there four hundred years 
ago.' Brilliant light, in Governor Gilmer's eyes, fell from the Span- 
iard's lips upon the pretty carnelian. It shone with lustrous glory as the 
stranger held it in the bright sunbeams falling through the open win- 
dow, and flooding the apartment. The gleaming stone became as 
eloquent as beautiful, and Governor Gilmer deemed it invaluable. It 



FAGOTS FROM THE CAMP FIRE. 135 

may not be improper to say that a few }-ears ago I caused the cabinet of 
Governor Gihiier, now the property of the University of Georgia, at 
Athens, to be examined by Mrs. General King, of Chalky Level, that I 
might photograph the stone and publish its history in Harper's 
Monthly. The carnelian dagger handle had disappeared. It could 
not be used or exposed in this country. There is not another like it. 
Is it not barely probable that it finally found its way, through Charles- 
ton, back to Spain? Though I was a little boy at the time, I remem- 
ber how eagerly that courtly gentleman, the Spanish consul, with 
his great lustrous black eyes devoured that brilliant stone. But any 
rude soldier of this dreary age would have deported such a carnelian 
for its beauty and uniqueness. 

" From old books gathered in the admirably well-selected and costly 
library of the University of Alabama, of about 150,000 volumes, I had 
gathered a share of information affecting religious creeds and ' super- 
stitions,' as we are pleased to term them, of Oriental peoples.* I had 
read of the crude faith that clings everywhere to the horseshoe as an 
emblem of good fortune. Our ancestors, as do we, through many 
centuries, persisted in hanging old horseshoes over gateways. Lord 
Nelson sailed into the battle of the Nile with a horseshoe nailed to 
the masthead of his ship. Recently, the vague, undefined superstition 
has gathered fresh vigor. Young gentlemen, strangely enough, have 
scarf pins fashioned after horseshoes. Fairest dames, more wonder- 
fully, knowing not wliat they do, deck miniature horseshoes with 
brightest jewels, worn as amulets. Old horseshoes, found in the 
highway, are gilded with gold and suspended over mantels in fashion- 
able salons of wealth and taste. Hindu maidens originally set the 
example. They have muttered pra3'ers, through many centuritrs, 
looking to the horseshoe as the vehicle of supreme delights. Who can 
tell in what facts the vague, but universally accepted superstition had 
origin? What does it signify, and what is this significance? The 
Eastern and Asian origin of the Irish race has been asserted, because 
Irishmen are especially addicted to that faith in the capacity of old 
horseshoes to ward off evil which obtained among Phrenecians every- 
where in the Orient. It was not a horseshoe, as such, that won, 
originally, this superstitious regard. But the horseshoe either repre- 
sented the crescent moon or probably symbolized that depraved nature- 
worship practiced by devotees of Siva in Hindustan. I saw Spratling 
pluck a worn-out horseshoe from its deep burial place in the roadway 
only yesterday, and carefully suspend it from the body of the oak 
beneath which he slept. He said his father did such things, and he 
only followed in his footsteps. 

"But all this is simply a prelude to an account of two discoveries, 

*Soon after the date of conversations here recited, the University of Ala- 
bama, with all its costly structures, observatory, dormitories, professor's residencis, 
and the old Roman pantheon, containing the library, was destroyed by fire. Tiie 
torch was applied by the specific orders of a commanding general. 



136 FAGOTS FROM THE CAMP FIRE. 

supposed to define De Soto's route from Florida to Arkansas and 
Texas. 

"William Richardson is an old and intelligent citizen of Pickens 
County, in. Eastern Alabama. Plowing in his field along an old road- 
way, not many miles from the little village of Yorkville, and, perhaps, 
twenty miles east of Columbus, Mississippi, he unearthed a package of 
twelve rust-eaten horseshoes. They were superimposed upon one 
another in the edge of this old roadway which was used at some 
period and by some race before Mr. Richardson was born, and before 
his farm was cleared and cultivated. I have what is left, by the 
corroding tooth of time, of one of these horseshoes. It is quite one- 
half broader than a modern horseshoe. It had no 'heel' and no 
groove or depression for the heads of the nails. We are not told by 
any chronicler of De Soto's wanderings and battles how his horses 
were shod or that he brought horseshoes from Europe and I am 
curious to know whether horseshoes of this description were made 
three hundred and fifty years ago in Spain. Since Indians never shod 
ponies, and no army ever invaded Pickens County, and these iron 
platings were designed for the hoofs of the largest horses and not for 
Indian ponies, and Mr. Richardson and his neighbors were always 
puzzled about the origin of the queer old rust-eaten horseshoes. Dr. 
Alexander Agnew, a gentleman of singular learning and literary 
taste, living in Richardson's neighborhood, carefully preserved the 
'relic' which I have. It gained value in his eyes when he learned 
that in the same old roadway several miles west of Richardson's and 
near the village of Yorkville, another discovery had been made which 
shed light upon the mystery attached to the horseshoes and to the 
origin of the 'old road.' Indians made no roads, only 'paths,' and 
yet here was a road evidently carved out as a wagon -way, its outlines 
perpetuated by rain-falls along the hill-sides, in primeval forests and 
beside this old road, at the foot of a hill, and at a bright, sparkling 
spring, perhaps seven or eight miles from Richardson's farm, a pair of 
apothecary's scales were found. A great chestnut tree was blown 
down, shown by consecutive rings of annual production to have been 
more than two hundred and fifty years old. It had drawn its life 
from the fountain of which I tell, and fell that a thirsty farmer might 
find the scales, guarded through centuries beneath its roots. The 
scales themselves and the weights, having on them Spanish inscriptions 
and numerals naming the King of Spain and the Pope of the period, 
and dated, if I remember accurately, 1534, had rested two and three 
feet below the earth's surface, and below the great tree, from the day 
the thirsty Spanish pharmaceutist, who accompanied De Soto, drank, 
and ate chestnuts at this spot. The tree sprang up. Its roots covered 
and guarded the scales till the tempest overthrew this monarch of the 
forest. The farmer, Mr. Alexander, who discovered the scales, took 
one of the weights to Carrollton, the capital of Pickens County, that 
the inscription might be translated. A Mexican war veteran said that 
the v/ords were Spanish and that it was very strange that implements 



FAGOTS FROM THE CAMP FIRE. 137 

of druggists' art, as old as these, should be found in such a spot. It 
never occurred to him that De Soto's followers lost the scales and thus 
designated a point in his route to the Mississippi. It can hardly be 
supposed that the Indians stole or seized in battle and lost both the 
horseshoes and the apothocary's scales found so near the same spot, 
and I have ever believed, since I became conversant with the facts 
here recited, that De Soto passed through Pickens County and crossed 
the Tombecbee, of which his chroniclers tell, at Barton, a little 
village a few miles above Columbus. Many persons of the neighbor- 
hood of Yorkville saw the scales and horseshoes of which I tell. 
They gossiped about the inscriptions, and this inter-state war came, 
and when I sought, not very long ago, to secure the relics, the finder 
had moved away. His grandson, a citizen of Columbus, Mississippi, 
wrote very recently that he had not abandoned hope of their recovery. 
But do not forget," added the journalist, "that I have the oldest 
horseshoe in the world, and that it belonged to De Soto. I have 
heard most intelligent officers and many soldiers, since the inception 
of inter-state hostilities, and since we began to march over the 
country in all directions, ascribe the erection of the old stone fort 
in Kentucky, and of that, more wonderful, at Winchester, Tennessee, 
to De Soto. General Bragg examined the ancient fortress at Win- 
chester, and stated when I asked him what he thought of it, that it was 
constructed in accordance with the most approved rules of the highest 
military art, and that with guns, even of a century ago, it was 
absolutely impregnable. Who reared this massive structure, and who 
carved out this stone and lifted up those enduring walls and when was 
the mighty task accomplished ? Great earthworks, fortifications, and 
mounds in Eastern Tennessee have been ignorantly ascribed to De 
Soto as their builder. He was never in East Tennessee, or at Win- 
chester, or in Kentucky and- nobody pretends that red men of our 
time ever executed these tasks comparable with works of highest 
civilization ; and I am persuaded that as Indians have been valueless 
and incapable, since 1492, when Columbus came, even so were they 
always averse to toil ; and, digging few graves, were addicted to no 
sj^ecies of industry. They were always nomadic and homeless as the 
i\paches. Creeks, and Sioux, and I have never believed that any 
Indian tribe, except the bearded Natchez, ever reared mounds like that 
at Florence, Alabama. The Natchez alone had beards like white men ; 
and, claiming descent from white men, were always, like the mound- 
builders, fire-worshippers. They were most civilized of all the red 
race. They gave La Salle a grand festival, sitting at tables covered 
with buckskin as white as linen. They used chopsticks, as do Chinese, 
and were greatly frightened when the Frenchmen of two hundred 
years ago dreAv broad, glittering knives from sheaths and thrust them 
with food into their mouths. They said their original king and queen 
came down from the skies, and that they were white ; that they lighted 
the sacred fires on the summit of the great mound just below Natchez 
which would burn while the Natchez were free, and no longer. The 



138 FAGOTS FROM THE CAMP FIRE. 

French made the priests drunken, extinguished the fires, the dispirited 
Natchez were easily beaten in battle, and migrated west, and became 
extinct. These Natchez Indians said that their fathers, who may 
have been the moundbuilders, once reigned over the whole continent, 
and that the land, covered with great cities, extended, unbroken by 
the sea, an infinite distance toward the east. There came a great 
convulsion of nature, and the Gulf of Mexico supplanted their 
sunken domains which had extended far out into the Southern 
Atlantic towards Africa. 

"When Commodore Maury surveyed the ocean's bottom from 
Cuba towards the western coast of Africa, he found abrupt chasms and 
shallow depressions, and there were those vrho believed that sunken 
cities rested in the ocean's dejjths, and that the Natchez were not 
mistaken, and that Solon and Diodorus Siculus were not misled by 
Egyptian priests who told them of the sunken continent, Atlantis, 
lying west of Africa. Isn't it strange that traditional lore of our red 
men was conformed to that communicated by Egyptian priests, five 
hundred years before Christ, to the Greek philosopher? Plutarch tells 
the story in his life of Solon. 

"If you would listen and know what I think about it," continued the 
newspaper man, "I would designate upon the map the route of De 
Soto, as I have defined it. We are constantly marching blindly over 
the country, and it invests one's movements with peculiar, intelligent 
interest, if we may read the liistory of men and battles of a former age 
in geographical facts. That we may not err and ascribe to the Spanish 
hero the works of primeval races found almost everywhere in America, 
I will give you a succinct definition of the route pursued by the heroic 
Spaniard. I was reading, even in Smithsonian papers, the grave 
statement that De Soto reared those skillfully constructed ancient 
fortifications, described by Edwin M. Grant, in Eastern Tennessee. 
The story was once told that De Soto built the great mounds at Birm- 
ingham, Alabama, and opened the tunnel as a means of underground 
communication, said by the people of the vicinity, when Lord Lyell 
was there in 1846, to connect the mounds with the spring, three 
hundred yards distant. The greater Birmingham mound is a parallel- 
ogram having an area of more than an acre on its summit. It is 
lifted up fifty or sixty feet above the valley in which Birmingham rests 
idly in the sunshine between mountain ranges five miles apart, of coal 
on the one hand and of iron on the other, each stratum thirty feet in 
thickness. I visited the place, when a boy, with 'Mr.' Lyell, the 
English geologist, but gave little attention to peculiar facts now dis- 
cussed. I only know that there is nothing in books or in the 
peculiarities of the ancient earth-works at Birmingham to induce the 
belief that De Soto visited the spot. It is hardly necessary to suggest 
the reflection that, as these greatest mounds commonly designate 
centers of moundbuilders' wealth and population, so, in our time, they 
mark sites of most prosperous town and cities, and we may yet dis- 
cover evidences of the use of coal and iron which must have attracted 



FAGOTS FROM THE CAMP FIRE. 139 

primeval inhabitants of the continent, if they used these minerals, to 
the beautiful valley in which Birmingham reposes. Whether they did 
or not, it is nevertheless true that the site of each great city in the 
valley of the Mississippi was designated for our race by great mounds, 
showing that the same commercial laws and facts begat aggregations 
of wealth and population in the moundbuilders' age as in ours. Did 
they have steamers and railways ? Surely they were not modern red 
men who had no commercial ideas and located towns and villages 
without reference to facilities for navigation or proximity of produc- 
tive districts. I have said this that one may not confound works of 
primeval races with those of the heroic Spanish knight. 

"Using Theodore Irving's translations of old records preserved in 
Spain, and applying data somewhat vague to geographical and topical 
facts familiar to those who have traversed the Gulf States as often as 
most Confederate soldiers, and then cognizant of each antiquarian's 
discovery that designates a spot visited by the Spanish adventurers, I 
would state that De Soto left Tampa Bay, Florida, going northwest, 
June 31, 1539. De Soto's route was parallel to or near the road from 
Tampa to Fort King. He crossed the Withlacoochee and Suwanee 
Rivers. He moved into Georgia and passed the winter of 1539-40 on 
the Bay of St. Marks. March 3, 1540, he left Appalachee and 
following up the east bank of the Flint River, crossed into Baker 
County, Georgia. The Alabama poet and literateur, Alexander B. 
Meek, in his book entitled, 'Romantic Passages in Southwestern 
History,' published in 1837, says that De Soto passed very near the 
site of the present beautiful city of Macon. But Judge Meek never 
heard of Governor Gilmer's carnelian dagger handle or of the discovery 
more recently made at Macon, in this State. 

"When the place was partially fortified not many months ago. Dr. 
I. E. Nagle, now of New Orleans, was sent thither to organize army 
hospitals and provide for the sick and wounded. He was watching 
Confederate soldiers employed in perfecting old military earthworks 
planned and upheaved by prehistoric races in the suburbs of Macon. 
These earthworks were made after the models used in our time 
and it was only necessary to repair them. They may have been 
planned and built by De Soto, but it is much more probable that he, 
as did these Confederate soldiers, used here, as the latter did the 
mounds to resist Grant's gunboats along Yazoo Pass, these old strong- 
holds of primeval occupants of the country. In any event, while the 
Confederates were digging away the base of a broad, earthen wall, 
they came upon a grave, its occupants' skeletons encased in rust-eaten 
coats of mail. Dr. Nagle sought to secure the relics, but these were 
claimed and retained by the owner of the spot, and the doctor was 
only suffered to have a broken rosary twined about a skeleton's 
neck. This rosary adorns to-day, so Dr. N. tells me, the walls of the 
priest's rooms attached to the cathedral in Memphis, Tennessee. A 
part of the sword of an armored knight remained undestroyed by 
time ; but the armor itself was only a series of layers of iron rust. But 



I40 FAGOTS FROM THE CAMP FIRE. 

full details of this discovery may be obtained by the curious in such 
matters by addressing Dr. I. E. Nagle, No. 13 St. Charles Street, 
New Orleans, Louisiana, as W. B. Bryan, of Columbus, Mississippi, 
will tell of the discovery of the Spanish apothecary's scales by his 
grandfather at Yorkville, Alabama. 

"Leaving Macon, where he probably fought the Indians, using 
moundbuilders' earthworks, he passed near Milledgeville, and crossed 
the Ocmulgee and Oconee Rivers, entering the province of Cofachiqui 
lying within the fork of the Broad and Savannah Rivers. May 3, 
1540, the Spaniards moved northwest and were five days crossing the 
mountains of Habersham County, in the midst of which the late Texas 
soldier and senator. Rusk, — Houston's peer, — was born. In De Soto's 
time, this Cherokee County was known as Chalacpie. He came to 
Canasauga, after several days' march, on the banks of the Etowah. 
June 25, 1540, the Spaniard encamped at Chiaha situated on the 
upper end of an island, as described by De Soto's chroniclers, fifteen 
miles in length. There is no such island in the Coosa River, but the 
Spaniard i)robably mistook the peninsula formed by the Coosa and 
Chattooga for an island, or these rivers were originally united, creating 
an island above the point of confluence. Farmers of the district say 
that such was the case. In any event there is no doubt that the indian 
town and stronghold, Chiaha, was but a short distance above the 
junction of the Coosa and Chattooga. 

"Leaving Chiaha July 2, 1540, De Soto on the same day reached 
Acoste on the southern extremity of the island. The next day he 
crossed the Coosa River, marching several days through a province of 
that name — it is sometimes spelled Cosa — embracing Benton, Talladega, 
Coosa, and Tallapoosa Counties, in Alabama. He rested at an indian 
town called Cosa, till August 20, 1540, when he began to move 
through Tallamuchassie LUlobali and Toasi. He reached Tallise, in 
the curve of the Tallapoosa River at the site of the present village of 
Tallase, September 18, 1540. From Tallise he went to Tuscaluza, on 
the banks of the Alabama, in Clarke County, where he fought his most 
terrible battle. November 18, 1540, he moved northwardly and, in 
five days, arrived at Cabusto, in the province of Pafalaya on the Black 
Warrior River in (ireen County near the village of Erie. After a few 
days' anabasis, he crossed the Tombigbee in a province called Chicasa, 
in a few days encamping at a town of the same name. Northern 
Mississippi and Western Tennessee were dwelling places of the heroic 
Chicsas or Chicasaws. We only known that after a terrific battle with 
these red men, De Soto was six days in reaching the Mississippi. 
Whether this battle was fought, as many suppose, near Tupelo or at 
Carrollton, in Mississippi, I am not prepared to say. From either 
point the great river might have been reached at Memphis after a six 
days' march. He crossed it forty miles above Memphis. With much 
accuracy the district known as Surrounded Hill, in Arkansas, sixty 
miles west of Memphis, is described by those who recited the story 
of De Soto's adventures. Beyond this, it is needless to follow him. 



FAGOTS FROM THE CAMP FIRE. 141 

Except Surrounded Hill, no place of encampment or of battle west of 
the river has been identified, except, as I have shown, that he was 
buried below Helena, at the base of Crowley's Ridge, in the channel 
occupied by the river at that date, now known as Old Town Lake. 

"When Arkansas and Texas and the Indian Territory are more 
densely populated, and broader areas are cultivated, the plow and 
spade may make discoveries to define paths as made west of the Mis- 
sissipi by the daring, resolute Spaniard." 

"Will you not tell me," asked the schoolmaster, "how you know 
that De Soto was entombed in Old Town Lake. I never heard the 
assertion before. I have seen many pictures of the sad burial scene, 
but never one representing the locality as now identified." 

The newspaper man replied : 

"We have heard enough of De Soto for to-night. Remind me 
to-morrow evening or at noon that the story should have its proper 
conclusion, and I will tell all I know of De Soto that has not been 
published in countless books and magazine articles devoted to this 
attractive theme." 



CHAPTER XXI. 



Physical and Climatic Charms of East Tennessee. — The Captain and Spratling Pur- 
sued by Cavalry. — A Bloody Day's Work. — .Spratling Visits Bessie Starnes. — 
Wounded. — The Conflagration and Flight. 

Occasional days, even now, in February, presaged the coming of 
spring. Delights of sunny latitudes were discovered in Favonian 
breezes occasionally coming up from the sea, and in the ethereal 
mildness of southern summer skies. Verse and book makers tell of 
"smiling sunlight" and "fertilizing showers" when spring-time comes 
in hyperborean regions. The imagination of weary, restless wealth 
and fashion is excited, and never learns the truth that the fiery 
fierceness of the summer's sun and hot-air baths of cloudy afternoons 
are infinitely more intolerable at Cape May and Saratoga, than 
cooling winds that climb the mountains and descend into the valleys 
and come toying with roses and dancing about cottages of dwellers in 
East Tennessee. Each inhabitant sooner or later falls under the spell 
of enchantment and is ready to exclaim, "The fairest land beneath 
the sun." Spring expands into summer, and summer is the rest of 
the year. East Tennessee is poetically eloquent of the charms of 
delightful valleys, the sweep of verdure-clad plains, the witchery of 
beautiful rivers, and impressive majesty of environing mountains. 
The face of the country is fascinating, strong, rugged, full of char- 
acter, and never to be forgotten. 

Glad and gracious days, through an entire twelve-month, have here 
been illumined with sweetest sunlight, and shed upon us continuous 
luster. Not elsewhere do flov/ers blossom more brightly or fruits ripen 
more generously or waters murmur more sweetly or birds sing more 
charmingly through all the months of the delightful year. 

To rise when those mountains environing East Tennessee are flushed 
with splendors of earliest dawn ; to traverse smiling valleys and deep 
green fields while scarlet flowers clasp the gliding feet ; to watch 



FAGOTS FROM THE CAMP FIRE. 143 

purple wraiths of rain haunting the fairness of the parti-colored 
mountains; to see the shadows chase the sun's rays on the dusky 
sides of the Blue Ridge or Smoky or Cumberland range ; to feel the 
living light of the cloudless day beat as with a million pulses; to go 
out in the luster of the night aflame with astral splendors, until the 
dark still plains and deep and darker valleys blaze like a phosphor- 
escent sea; to breathe this wondrous air, soft as the first impassioned 
kisses of young love, and rich as wine with the delicious odors of a 
world of flowers — these, as was written of Italy, have been our 
joys — the joys at once of the senses and of the soul. 

Eastern Tennessee is the dream-land of the continent. Cold, 
fierce, wintry blasts that came, not long ago, from icy caverns beneath 
hyperborean snows and made us shiver on the mountain's brow, only 
serve to excite stronger affection for the homes we have in deep 
valleys, beneath cloudless skies, fanned by delicious breezes coming, 
warm with the life-blood of the equator, and tripping away, with laps 
full of roses, from rich, green fields almost tropical in their exuber- 
ance. 

Such was the land of which Mr. Wade, the good pedagogue, was 
delighted to tell. He had revisited Eastern Tennessee. Encountering 
no difficulty at the Hiwassee bridge and having passports for himself 
and Mamie Hughes from General Johnston, he had complied with 
Mamie's wishes and proceeded directly to Tunnel Hill and thence to 
Mamie's home. Her anxiety to return to Georgia, the pedagogue 
said, was infinitely heightened when she was informed by him that 
her brother had preceded her to her mother's home with a safe con- 
duct given by the captain. 

"The captain, it seems," said Mamie, "and that gigantic Spratling 
who participated in delights of the dance by moonlight on the banks 
of the Tennessee, are my brother's benefactors. It makes me shudder 
when I think of my brother's neck in the grasp of that giant; but I 
can't forget his simple, earnest, big-hearted generosity, and how' he 
loves my brother because this brother is beloved by his own pretty 
sweetheart. How infinite must be the ardor of his devotion to that 
charming Bessie Starnes of whom my brother has often written. And 
what an extraordinary creature is this gigantic Spratling. Devoid of 
jealousy, and in utter self-abnegation he becomes the more than 
friend of my brother because he thinks Bessie Starnes would have 
him serve her preferred suitor. If Bessie were cognizant of the facts 
and capable of measuring and properly valuing such devotion I greatly 
fear she would prefer the giant and even forget my handsome brother. 
I am sure I don't know how I could withstand such assertions of 
devotion made by such a soldier as you describe when telling of the 
daring deeds and generous acts and words of this wonderful Sprat- 
ling." 

"Instead of coming out on foot through Sequatchie Valley as I 
proposed," continued the schoolmaster, "of which I spoke in order 
that the captain might be prepared for the worst, we traveled very 



144 FAGOTS FROM THE CAMP FIRE. 

comfortably and very safely in a condemned ambulance given me by 
a quarter-master. Mamie, instead of the role of a rollicking country 
boy, enacted the part of a staid country dame. I had no difficulty in 
distinguishing rebel from Union scouts, and was provided, as you 
know, with papers eminently satisfactory to either. I am here, now, 
on a mission of peace and instructed to invite the captain, Spratling, 
the newspaper man and his brother to spend a day or weeks with 
the lieutenant at his mother's home." 

Very certainly no message ever gave greater satisfaction. Sprat- 
ling alone failed to assert his glad acceptance. He became moody, 
and was silent. He said, at last, that before going to Tunnel Hill, 
we must go in the opposite direction toward Chattanooga. We 
must know what the enemy are doing, and that no great movement is 
on foot, before we devote a day to idleness. 

There was no evading the necessity and yet we suspected that the 
suggestion sprang from Spratling' s anxiety to meet Bessie Starnes. 
But armies could not remain idle. The sun was shining brightly, 
and now and then, we caught faint breathings of dawning spring- 
time. 

Next morning, at day-dawn, the captain and Spratling set out on 
foot to traverse the distance between the two armies. Their purpose 
was to go as far as Chattanooga Creek between Rossville and Chatta- 
nooga, and, returning, spend the night at Starnes'. They would not 
be absent more than three days and on their return we proposed to 
accept the hospitality of Lieutenant Hughes. We knew well enough 
that the expedition, now entered upon by the captain, would be as 
speedily ended as possible. 

It lasted just three days and none fuller of grave incidents ever 
"befell the two scouts. They said, when they returned, Spratling 
severely but not dangerously wounded by a bullet that pierced his 
left shoulder, that they were induced by anxiety to learn what move- 
ment was contemplated by the Union army, to cross Chattanooga 
Creek not far from Rossville. They were greatly fatigued and had 
mounted, each, an ill-used, emaciated horse, purchased for a trifling 
sum from an innocent countryman, who had certainly stolen the 
animals. When they had turned back, and were within five miles of 
the creek, flooded by recent rainstorms, they discovered that a squad 
of Union cavalry followed. 

Flight and pursuit were instantly begun. The worn-down horses 
soon began to flag. Fleet enough at first, and out-stripping pursuit, 
it was found at the end of two and a half miles that the horses must 
be abandoned. 

The two flying scouts had entered a long, narrow lane. Some 
distance ahead was a carriage occupied by a gentleman and his wife. 
This was overtaken. There was no other recourse. The captain said 
to Spratling : 

"Tell the gentleman we must exchange horses, and that a fair 
exchange, under such circumstances, is no robbery." 



FAGOTS FROM THE CAMP FIRE. 145 

Spratling having the better horse was slightly ahead. He rode 
beside the carriage, a negro driving it, and apologizing for the 
necessity, ordered a halt. The frightened negro leaped from his seat, 
and Spratling, when the captain came up, had cut the 'hame strings' 
and thrown the harness from one horse. This the captain mounted. 
Looking back, he beheld the flying cavalry enter the lane. In an 
instant the other horse was stripped. There was no need for saddles, 
and the captain and Spratling on fresh horses outsped pursuit. 
Protected for a time against shots of the enemy by the carriage and 
its occupants, they fled, at last under fire, down the long lane. The 
aim of men pursuing, at men pursued, all on horseback, is not 
accurate; and firearms, thus used, are not dangerous; but when 
twenty or thirty bullets come, in successive showers, designed to fall 
upon a fugitive's unprotected spine, he is much inclined to be 
imcomfortable. He imagines there are holes in his back. He 
thrusts his hat on the back of his head and will lie down on his 
horse. 

"Much heroism is required of him," said Spratling, when telling 
of this race for life, "who sits perfectly erect under such painful 
circumstances." 

The foremost of the enemy were within fifty yards when tlie 
captain and Spratling sped away on the horses taken from the carriage. 
Within a mile the fresh steeds added steadily to the distance from 
their pursuers, but that ridden by the gigantic Spratling bore two 
hundred and thirty pounds. Its limbs grew weak and Spratling said 
to the- captain that he must soon abandon it. They exchanged 
horses. The captain weighing only one hundred and sixty-five 
pounds, the more weary animal again moved rapidly, keeping pace 
with the other. 

They were drawing near the flooded creek when the weaker horse, 
bearing the captain, faltered and fell. The cavalry were now within 
two hundred yards and the creek, swollen by recent rains, was about 
the same distance ahead. The weary horse rose up and making a 
desperate struggle reached the precipitous bank of the creek. The 
bridge had disappeared. Neither rider checked his courser. Plunging 
in over the precipitous bank, they sank, to the riders it seemed an 
infinite distance, down into the depths of the roaring torrent. When 
they came to the surface they were rapidly borne down the stream by 
its angry force. The captain's weary horse, incapable of exertion, 
could not sustain the weight of the armed rider. The captain dropped 
into the current, and holding the mane, floated beside the animal, 
following that bearing Spratling. They had descended the stream 
perhaps one hundred yards when Spratling guided his horse to a place 
of possible exit on the eastern bank. Making a desperate effort the 
powerful animal escaped from the raging torrent. The captain was 
not so fortunate. His weary steed had not the strength to make tlie 
ascent. Struggling desperately, the soft clay of the steep bank yielded 
and the horse rolled backward, and drowning, was swept away by the 

10 



146 FAGOTS FROM THE CAMP FIRE. 

angry waves. The captain clambered up, holding to the limbs of 
trees that grew at the water's edge and swept the water's surface. 

If the pursuers, now halting where the bridge had stood, crossed 
the creek, the scouts were lost. Hurrying to the crossing place and 
using water-proof cartridges the scouts began firing upon the cavalry. 

Spratling and the captain, from behind trees, delivered fatal shots, 
while volleys fired by the mounted men were harmless. The lieuten- 
ant in charge of the squad soon ordered a retreat. 

The result of the flight and fight was the death of three or four 
Union cavalrymen and the wrongful acquisition by the Confederate 
scouts of an excellent horse. 

"Spratling, terrible as had been our exertions and exciting as was 
the flight and incapable of effort as we were after such a struggle for life, 
was anxious," the captain said, "to move rapidly towards Starnes' 
place." He proposed to walk, surrendering the powerful horse 
wholly to the captain. The latter objected. "Then," said Sprat- 
ling, "I will have a horse of my own." 

At a little farmhouse, hard by, Spratling called. The owner 
came affrightedly to the door. Spratling said to him : 

"My name is Spratling. I am a Confederate scout. I never told 
a lie, that I know of, in my life. I want a horse. I will ride him 
only ten miles. Then he will be returned unharmed to you." 

The farmer was silent. 

"Come," said Spratling, "I have no time for words. Bring me a 
horse within ten minutes and you shall lose nothing. If you fail, or 
send Yankees or bushwhackers after me I will burn your house and 
destroy everything. Do as I ask and you will lose nothing." 

Spratling, bestriding a good horse, soon joined the captain. The 
two scouts, within two hours, were near the modest home of Bessie 
Starnes. 

"Bushwhackers will be on our path to-night. That cowardly, 
silent, surly little fellow from whom you borrowed that horse," said 
the captain, "will set a squad of murderers on our track. He has 
summoned them already and that may be the costliest animal a Texan 
ever bestrode. I know you must see Bessie and tell her how you 
came to capture her lover, the Yankee lieutenant, and my prospective 
brother-in-law. You would tell Bessie how sorry you are and that 
you did it ignorantly and then you will tell her how you and I and 
the editor and his brother and the schoolmaster are going to spend a 
a delightful week at the young lieutenant's home. Then Bessie will 
hardly know whether she loves you or the lieutenant, and you and 
she will talk and dream and talk again even until sunrise. 

"I will rest on the hiil-side that looks down on Bessie's home. 
Bring me bacon, eggs, and bread when you bring your horse to my 
resting place. I am hungrier than a famished wolf. It is not well 
that those who may soon follow us should know where I am. The 
man from whom you borrowed the animal did not see me. I thought 
it best to remain concealed while you were negotiating for the horse. 



FAGOTS FROM THE CAMP FIRE. 147 

If we are pursued the enemy will have only strength enough to assure 
success in a conflict with you. We are lucky in this," continued the 
captain, half soliloquizing, as he left Spratling following the dim 
roadway, while he turned into the woods to ascend the hill beyond 
and in front of the house. 

Spratling was warmly welcomed. Mother and daughter were alike 
devoted to the honest, fearless Texan. Deeming Bessie the betrothed 
of the lieutenant, Spratling was much more formal and reserved in his 
bearing than when last he met the pretty mountain girl. When she 
asked why he was thus reserved he gave the reasons with refreshing 
simplicity and perfect truthfulness, and then told Bessie how he came 
to capture her lover. When he narrated with painstaking, honest 
minuteness each incident of the event, how he crept to the tree 
beside which the lieutenant slept, his head resting on its roots, and 
how he silently and noiselessly grasped the helpless lieutenant's throat, 
whispering the word "Spratling" in his ear, Bessie grew pale and 
shuddered. 

"Oh ! I knew you would hate me for it," exclaimed Spratling, "but 
I did not know he was your lover. I did not know he was Lieutenant 
Hughes! How could I help it? You ought to love me that I spared 
him. It's a wonder I had not killed him. But he knew me, and 
that resistance was useless, and then he was helpless." 

Bessie insisted that she was glad the lieutenant had fallen into the 
hands of those who served him so well and that she esteemed him 
none the less that he had captured her lover. 

When Spratling, that she might wholly forgive him, added that he 
would have died rather than wrong or harm the man Bessie loved, 
and because she loved him, Bessie stared wonderingly into Spratling's 
great blue eyes. She did not then measure or comprehend the depth, 
dignity or worth of Spratling's self-sacrificing devotion. But when 
the earnest soldier frankly said, "I would rather die, Bessie, than 
harm even a dog that you loved," her bright eyes sank to the floor, 
and pearly tear drops of gratitude were priceless jewels proffered in 
exchange for treasures of affection exposed to her vision by the ardent, 
honest, magnanimous soldier. 

Bessie hardly knew whether she loved more the handsome, lithe, 
graceful, gallant lieutenant or the self-reliant, honest, frank, and 
fearless scout. She was now endeavoring, in the solitude of her little 
bed chamber, when Spratling slept soundly in the adjoining room, to 
solve the vexed problem. She had seen first and first loved the 
fascinating lieutenant who was passionately fond of her. He had 
constantly written to her. When he came to Chattanooga he at once 
sought her presence. He had endeavored to make her confess the 
charms and comprehend the intellectual and personal virtues of his 
sister, Mamie, who, he said, was to become Bessie's sister. But in 
his absence, and when she measured the wealth of the unselfish 
Texan's affections lavished upon her and confessed the grand 
simplicity of his character and personal worth, she confessed for him a 



148 FAGOTS FPvOM THE CAMP FIRE. 

degree of admiration and gratitude that almost lapsed into love. 

The events of the day followed by those of the evening, the long, 
hard ride, the flight, the passage of the creek, the fight at the wrecked 
bridge, and protracted interview with Bessie, were exciting incidents, 
and Spratling, utterly exhausted, slept profoundly. 

He was aroused by hearing his name pronounced by some one at 
the door demanding admittance. 

*' Who are you?" asked Spratling. 

"Fve come with friends to get my horse," was the answer. 

"I promised to return him in the morning and nobody ever 
accused Spratling of breaking his word. Leave the house or I will 
shoot you." 

"Come out or we will burn this house as you did Mrs. Shields', and 
we will suffer none to escape. Come out, like a man, and spare the 
pretty girl you pretend to love." 

The captain was now aroused. On the hill side looking down upon 
the house, he was impatient for the disappearance of morning mists that 
partially obstructed vision making it impossible to select victims for 
his rifle and repeaters. The weary horses were tethered just beyond 
the brow of the hill and the captain was ready for the impending fray. 
His enemies little dreamed of danger and only feared that the power- 
ful Texan, by some means might escape in the dim, misty twilight. 
Spratling, fearing that the captain slept, sought to temporize. He 
thought that day-dawn would serve the captain well and therefore 
asked his untimely visitor why he called so early. 

" Did I not tell you," asked Spratling, "that I would deliver your 
horse to-day." 

"Yes" was the answer, "but I knew you lied." 

The captain, overhearing this reply, said, when telling, afterward, 
of the event, that he knew that the conference was at an end — that a 
shot would follow that word. 

" I watched and waited," he said, "only a moment. Spratling 
knew that his interlocutor was not alone. Instead of opening the 
door he suddenly thrust aside the window-shutter, and, as he 
anticipated, found four men in the yard silently watching and 
waiting at the doorway. Spratling fired. By the flash of the pistol 
I was shown the object of his hate. I fired into the little group. 
Two at least were fatally wounded, but one, who was unharmed, fired 
at Spratling, the shot taking effect in the brave fellow's shoulder. It 
must have paralyzed him for a time. He withdrew from the window 
and then the fog rolling down the high hill grew so dense that even 
the house was invisible. . I was helpless, and could only await the 
course of events. I could hear the conversation of the bushwhackers, 
but distinguish only now and then a word spoken. Their attention 
had been so riveted upon Spratling's movements that they did not 
dream that my rifle laid low one of their number. This was the more 
wonderful since Spratling had not fired simultaneously. The light 
from the flash of Spratling's pistol had given fatal direction to my 



FAGOTS FROM THE CAMP FIRE. 149 

bullet. But strangely enough the intent bushwhackers had neither 
seen the flash of my rifle nor heard its report. They ascribed the 
sad havoc to Spratling's diabolical pistol. Satisfied, too, that he was 
alone they were resolved to capture and destroy him. The farmer 
whose horse Spratling had taken, was heard insisting that the house 
should be burned." 

As Spratling told us afterward, he had lain down without undressing 
himself, and slept instantly, unconscious even of his own existence, 
till he heard his name pronounced. When shot, he staggered away 
from the window. Bessie, meanwhile, was dressed and watching and 
listening at the doorway leaning from Spratling's into hers and her 
mother's apartment. She could see Spratling when he fired upon his 
assailants from the window and when he started back she knew he was 
wounded. He called her and telling her to be quiet, said : 

" I am shot in the shoulder. I am not hurt. I can still raise my 
arm. Stop the bleeding. Tie it up tightly and quickly. Then let 
me have another shot at the rascals." 

While he was saying this he tore the sheet on which he had slept, 
in strips, and Bessie and her mother bound them tightly about the 
armpit, closing the orifices of the wound in front and rear with 
cotton. The bullet had pierced the flesh and muscles beneath the 
shoulder joint. 

Meanwhile gray mists of morning had disappeared and the captain 
could see that only three men were left to capture or kill the Texan. 
At any moment he could reduce the number by one but deemed it 
prudent to await developments. He supposed that Spratling was not 
idle and had good reasons for inaction. 

The captain saw one of the bushwhackers leave the rest who stood 
behind trees some distance from the house. They were, perfectly 
exposed to the captain's aim but could hardly be harmed by Sprat- 
ling. Soon the plans of the bushwhackers were developed. Flames 
first ascended from a "fodder-stack" in the rear of the house and then 
from the dairy hard by the residence. Firebrands were thrown upon 
the adjoining kitchen. 

The captain could endure inaction no longer. He fired upon 
the bushwhackers, wounding one just as he or his comrade had 
wounded Spratling. The fellow shrieked, "Fm shot!" and fell. 
The captain rushed shouting down the hill and with his pistol fired at 
the flying bushwhackers. 

Spratling's arm was now cared for. He opened the door, a pistol 
in each hand, to find inextinguishable flames enveloping the kitchen 
attached to the wooden residence. 

Maddened to a degree never known before, Spratling rushed into 
the yard. While the captain pursued the bushwhacker Spratling 
hurried down the road along which the owner of the horse he borrowed 
was in full flight. Spratling was fleet as he v/as incomparably strong. 
He leaped the fence. His strides were of incredible length as he 
went headlona: down the road. The wretched little farmer looked 



I50 FAGOTS FROM THE CAMP FIRE. 

back. He beheld his doom in the giant's coming. He leaned for- 
ward, straining every nerve and muscle and finally fell, breathless and 
helpless. Armed, as he was, he forgot his pistols in his terror. 

Spratling ran beyond the helpless wretch. As he turned back fires 
of infernal hate and vengeance were lighted up in his face by the 
flames he beheld consuming the home and all the wealth of Bessie 
Starnes. Spratling beheld in the miserable, cringing wretch only an 
incendiary and assassin. He had followed as a murderer on Sprat- 
ling's tracks He had said that Spratling lied, an offence to be 
punished, in accordance with the code of morals under which Sprat- 
ling was reared, with death. He had fired the home of Bessie 
Starnes. In Spratling's eyes the miscreant's deeds were worse than 
infernal. At the moment, while Bessie and her mother stood in the 
roadway contemplating the destruction of all their wealth and of their 
home, Spratling was infuriated — a very fiend. He set his foot upon 
the fallen coward, and stamped and kicked him. Bones, ribs, and 
skull were crushed. He thrust his foot beneath the limp, lifeless 
body and hurled it from the roadway. 

The bushwhacker escaped from the captain. ^Vhen he returned 
from the pursuit he was conscious, as when Mrs. Shields' house was 
destroyed, that instant flight was an urgent necessity. Bessie and 
her mother would find a safer home after these terrible events, south of 
the Confederate lines, than in the vicinity of Chattanooga. Sprat- 
ling was made to comprehend the necessity for immediate action. 
Bessie was to be cared for and her mother made comfortable, and 
Spratling had no opportunity to indulge in harrowing thoughts and 
self-accusations. 

Household effects saved from the conflagration were deposited in a 
wagon, the two horses of Mrs. Starnes were attached to the vehicle, 
the ladieS drove the team, Spratling saddened as never before, by the 
mishaps of an eventful day, rode rapidly away and without an acci- 
dent, at nightfall, the party reached our camp. An apartment for 
Mrs. Starnes and Bessie was secured in a neighlDoring farmhouse, and 
again stories of adventure were told at night by the camp fire. 

Spratling was interrogated and confessed, with every evidence of 
keenest anguish, that his acts had caused the wreaking of devilish 
vengeance upon those he loved. He said it became his duty to 
replace the home of Mrs. Starnes and that at last he had a purpose in 
living. 

From that day forth he became the self-constituted guardian of 
Bessie. Affectionate, kind, and of matchless generosity, as he was, 
he seemed to have forgotten that three or four men, within four days, 
had lost their lives at his hands. He never seemed to doubt for a 
moment that the miserable wretch whom he killed by crushing his 
chest beneath his hob-nailed boot, deserved his fate. Spratling's 
conscience had been educated in the school of war. It was wholly 
right to kill if the fallen had a fair opportunity to kill. An Indian's 
methods of ambuscading, if the enemy's superior strength made 



FAGOTS FROM THE CAMP FIRE. 151 

fighting under cover necessary, were perfectly justifiable. No qualms 
of conscience would have disturbed Spratling's repose if he had 
hurled the wretch .who had sought his life and burned Bessie's home, 
over visible battlements of eternal perdition. Spratling's dreams 
were never disturbed by the crackling of the breaking ribs and skull 
of his helpless victim. Human life and anguish, in a soldier's as in a 
practiced surgeon's eyes, has no value. It is only necessaiy that it be 
taken or sriven "in the regular course of trade." 



CHAPTER XXII. 



The Captain Pursued as a Horse-Thief. — How he Escaped very Narrowly. — A 
Brave Boy. — Deposition of General Joseph E. Johnston. — How he Bade us 
Adieu. — Woes of Richmond. — The P'amed Cemetery of Virginia's Capital. — 
The Poor Child.— Its Burial Place. 

The captain was telling Mamie one evening, .some time after events 
here narrated, of the devotion and courage of a boy, when traversing 
the country below Dalton. Gillehan was not fifteen years of age ; but his 
sinews were toughened by toil and exposure, and piercing bright eyes 
significant of pluck and keen intelligence. His home was in Tennes- 
see in 1S63-64, but he now lives in Navvarro, Texas. He and the 
captain had been making a long journey, and noting the steady move- 
ment of the whole Federal army, now slowly advancing, its wings 
moving forward more rapidly to outflank General Joe Johnston on 
the east and on the west. It threatened to encompass him and cut 
off his communication with Atlanta, thus forcing him again and again 
to retreat. But Johnston's army was growing daily in niunbers and 
confidence, and especially in sublime confidence in the adroitness, 
seeming omni,science and caution of General Johnston, who never 
sacrificed a man if human skill and watchfulness could obviate the 
necessity. Therefore was he beloved, as well as trusted, by his soldiers. 
They believed he would not fight needlessly and only when victory 
was assured. His fighting force, when he assumed command near 
Chattanooga, was less than 35,000 men, and, though fighting every 
day, it exceeded 50,000 when he reached Atlanta, in July. Deser- 
tions became numberless when Johnston was about to occupy the 
heights environing Atlanta, and when President Jefferson Davis, im- 
patient and nervous, and tortured by Richmond newspapers, and by 
property-holders of Atlanta, and by subordinates of Johnston who had 
displaced Bragg, and now yearned for Johnston's position and power, 
removed Johnston and substituted Hood. 



FAGOTS FROM THE CAMP FIRE. 153 

" I was sleeping on the floor of a little cabin, beside Major-General 
William B. Bate, near the southern banks of the Chattahoochee river, 
and within a few miles of Atlanta, at three o'clock on the morning 
of the 19th of July, I think it was, 1864," interposed the news- 
paper man, "when a courier came. I was awakened by the clatter 
of the horse's hoofs. The speed of the animal told of the excite- 
ment of the rider. I received the dispatch, lighted a candle, and 
handed the paper, without saying a word, to General Bate, who had 
been sleeping soundly. 'My God!' exclaimed Bate, 'have you 
read this order from Richmond?' I nodded assent. He sat on the 
blanket on which we had been sleeping on the floor, with his head 
resting upon his hands and knees. How long I do not remember. 
But death-like silence, broken by the echoing hoofs of the flying 
courier's horse, pervaded the resting place of fifty thousand men. 

" 'I don't know what will be the result,' said General Bate; 'but 
this order means that we will fight to-day. Hood and battle are con- 
vertible terms. Tell the members of my staff, and let the soldiers 
know what is coming.' 

" Within half an hour I heard the hum of fifty thousand voices, 
sorrowfully, and in the dead hour of the night, discussing aad deplor- 
ing the substitution of Hood for Johnston. At sunrise we were mov- 
ing, and moving sadly and silently as a funeral train, towards the 
battlefield of Peach Tree Creek, five miles north of Atlanta. Of this 
bloody event, history tells. Therefore, I would only recall an incident 
of the memorable day, illustrative of the devotion of common soldiers 
to General Joseph E. Johnston. Our division moved, just after 
sunrise, along the country road in front of the little farmhouse occu- 
pied by him. Soldiers, at the head of the column called for him. He 
came out bareheaded, and stood on the piazza looking at us. Bate 
and his staff removed their hats, while rudfe, rugged, dust-and-sun- 
embrowned soldiers asserted infinite love and reverence for the gray- 
bearded, degraded veteran. 

" 'Good-bye, old Joe ; God bless you ! ' said one. 

" ' We love you, and will never forget you !' shouted another. 

" 'This is the darkest day that ever dawned on the Confederacy ! ' 
exclaimed a sergeant near me, and then a thousand or more cried out 
at once, asserting affection and grief. * 

" Then the masses of men, accumulating in front of the house, broke 
ranks, thrust the palings of the enclosure aside, and gathered about the 
general. Those nearest seized his hands, and it was with difficulty 
that he escaped from the excited multitude. He was wholly unmanned 
by this demonstration of affection, and tears fell from his eyes, while 
bronzed, bearded soldiers Avept as if they were children. General 
Bate and staff sat upon their horses, and though, before the sun went 
down we rode heedlessly over the dead bodies of many then weeping 
around their displaced leader, we, too, discovered that unconscious, 
unbidden evidences of deepest sympathy with these soldiers bedewed 
our faces. General Johnston disappeared in the house. 



154 FACxOTS FROM THE CAMP FIRE. 

" 'Fall in, men! Forward!' And then no other words were 
spoken, and the steady tramp, tramp, tramp of armed legions moving 
to victory or death, shook the earth. Seventy men from a single 
brigade of Tennesseeans had already deserted their colors that fatal 
morning, and, crossing the Chattahoochee, entered the Federal lines. 
In portions of the army mutiny was threatened, and if Joe Johnston 
had not been so thorough a soldier, obeying as he exacted obedience, 
he would have remained at the head of the magnificent army he had 
created. These soldiers believed it to be invincible, and knew it 
would be when General Johnston chose to test its heroism. Its gallant 
deeds, even when beheaded, on Peach-Tree Creek, and two days later, 
when McPherson fell, and later, at Nashville and Franklin, only serve 
to show how brilliant would have been its achievements with Joe John- 
ston demanding an exhibition of its worth and illustrations of its valor." 

But the captain, when the newspaper man interposed, was telling of 
incidents that occurred four or five months earlier at Dalton. Gille- 
han, the brave youth and guide whom he had been commending to 
Mamie Hughes, and the captain were plodding, foot-sore and weary, 
toward Dalton, then occupied as General Johnston's headquarters. 
They were to go west about eight miles, and as many north, in order 
to learn what changes had been made during the week in the position 
of the Federal army. Gillehan's feet were very sore. He even com- 
plained that his sufferings became intolerable. We saw two Confeder- 
ate cavalrymen tie their horses in front of a farm-house, and leaving 
them absolutely imguarded, go down the hill behind it to secure 
accustomed supplies of buttermilk for their commander, General 
Martin, of Arkansas. 

"It can't be helped. Captain," modestly suggested Gillehan, "but 
we must have these horses or give up this expedition. I can't walk 
any farther. ' ' 

" It can't be helped then," I answered, and while two women and 
half a dozen tow-headed, half-naked children screamed and called 
for the " buttermilk cavalrymen " at the spring, Gillehan and I rode 
rapidly away. 

" The children and dogs and the women, the latter with yellow mops 
in their mouths, pursued us only a short distance. They could only 
say we were Confederate soldiers. Knowing that we must return to 
that point during the night, we informed the pickets of the fact, and 
since we might be pursued by the enemy's scouts, that we did not 
wish to be shot at. Orders were given accordingly. This provision 
for our safety proved to be the cause, as will be seen hereafter, of 
terrible dangers and anxieties. 

"General Martin, when he heard that his buttermilk supply train 
had been ruthlessly deprived of its horses by Confederate scouts, was 
filled with wrath. He swore that military law should be enforced and 
the thieves shot. With his staff, he rode along the lines to ascertain 
at what point we came in. When he found that we had gone out and 
had' not entered, he waxed exceeding wroth. But when he learned 



FAGOTS FROM THE CAMP FIRE. 155 

from the captain on duty at the outpost that we would soon return 
and be sent under guard to the provost marshal, General B. J. Hill, 
Martin left with this captain enveloped charges and specifications, 
signed by himself and sworn to by his robbed agents. This paper, if 
it reached army headquarters, would be fatal, as I well knew, to 
Gillehan and myself. 

"After learning that which we sought to know, Gillehan and I returned 
to the point on our lines, to be sent, of course under guard, to head- 
cjuarters. The sun was rising when we asked for the guard. We saw 
that something was wrong when five, instead of two, men were detailed 
for this service, and I saw the officer on duty give the sergeant in charge 
of the squad a large sealed envelope addressed to Provost Marshal 
General Hill. How to get possession of that paper and its contents 
was the question. The sergeant was a rude, dull soldier. He knew 
nothing of the purpose of these papers. None knew my name or 
Gillehan 's. I would have committed any act of violence less than 
murder to prevent the delivery of that envelope. 

"General Hill occupied a square, framed house in Dalton, having 
a veranda in front. A railing was extended across the hall to exclude 
those not invited to enter ; but scouts were ordered to enter instai\tly 
and report at any hour of the day or night. I preceded the sergeant 
to Hill's doorway. I entered. The guard ordered the sergeant to 
halt. I turned and said to the sergeant, ' Give me the envelope 
addressed to General Hill, and I will deliver it and get a pass that you 
may return to your command, and then you can go.' The unthinking 
soldier gave me the invaluable package. I thrust it beneath my blouse, 
and entering, greeted Hill's adjutant general, Miller. Miller asked, 
eying me suspiciously, 'Why is such a strong guard sent with you this 
morning?' I answered, hesitating just a little, 'O, I don't know, but 
several of the boys wished to come into Dalton, and this duty of 
guarding me served as a pretext.' 

"Miller wrote and signed the pass, and I was delighted beyond 
measure when I saw the stupid sergeant and his ragged followers 
gallop away. General Hill, deeming my statements with reference to 
the movements of the wings of Sherman's army important, sent me to 
General Johnston that I might report in person. I left Gillehan at the 
tavern in Dalton, instructing him to tie the bridle reins to the saddles 
on the two horses and start them towards Martin's camp. Horses 
herded together in a battery or cavalry command become as thoroughly 
identified, in feeling and attachments, with one another as do their 
riders. Trained horses, after their riders have fallen in fierce conflicts, 
never desert their colors. I knew that the horses we had appropriated, 
when set free, would return to their masters. 

"The first man I met at General Johnston's headquarters was 
General Martin. He eyed me suspiciously, but said nothing. He 
supposed, of course, that the thieving scouts were already incar- 
cerated. But nobody knew my real name at headquarters except 
General Johnston and Adjutant General Harvey. I recited my 



156 FAGOTS FROM THE CAMP FIRE. 

story, received my instructions, and when I emerged from General 
Johnnston's presence, again encountered General Martin. He was 
telling Colonel E. J. Harris, Colonel Miller, and General Harvey 
of the 'infernal daring theft of two horses practiced by two scouts.' 
Miller gave me a most significant glance, but I made no sign. I 
heard Harvey, General Johnston's adjutant general, say, 'They can't 
escape. There is a pair of them, you say ? and you sent up the charges 
with the guard ? ' 

" ' O, yes ; d d them ! ' answered Martin. 

" 'Then,' replied Colonel Harvey, 'they can't escape. They will 
be in the guardhouse before night and under the daisies to-morrow 
morning.' 

"Miller looked at me pitifully again. He evidently knew that I 
had appropriated Martin's horses and stolen the 'indictment.' 

" I did not feel comfortably, and silently beckoned Miller to follow 
me. He and I went to the tavern. I had brought in a few Yankee 
luxuries, and Miller loved delicious beverages. Gillehan had pre- 
pared dinner, and I produced a bottle, and then expounded General 
Martin's griefs. Miller laughed till he suffered mortal anguish. 
We drank again, and as he advised, I hurried away to execute tasks 
imposed by the latest orders of General Johnston. 

" Then other scouts came in from different directions during the 
day. General Martin still lounged about headquarters. He knew 
his indictment had been sent up and that the scout it accompanied 
would be arrested. General Harvey so advised him, and so did 
General Hill. But no arrest was made. Late in the afternoon, 
Martin hurried out ten miles to see the officer who had sent me 
in under guard. This officer could only say that a scout had gone 
forward Avith a sergeant and five men and that the sergeant had the 
papers to be delivered at headquarters. Martin hurried back to Gen- 
eral Hill, to be informed that three scouts only had reported during 
the day and that no papers came with either. Then Martin rode back 
to see the sergeant. He heard the simple story that the papers were 
delivered to the scout himself at General Hill's door. Again did 
Martin fly to General Hill's, to find that the bird had flown. 

"I was already bending my steps towards East Tennessee to dis- 
charge a service requ-iaring an absence of two weeks. General Martin 
was now advised that, though I was a horse-thief, I had returned the 
property, temporarily appropriated, and that my recall was impossible. 
Colonel Miller explained the facts to Generals Johnston and Hill, and 
I would gladly tender this apologetic statement to General Martin. 

" By the way," continued the captain, "I have here a northern 
newspaper, the Cincinnati Gazette. It tells of terrible events that 
occurred in Texas in 1861. Mankind can never understand it, but it 
is true that there was a share of justification for most horrible deeds 
ever done in Kansas, Missouri, and Texas.. A Federal colonel in 
Missouri, McNeil, caused a dozen or two men to be shot, at Palmyra 
in that State, in cold blood. When we learn why this was done the 



FAGOTS FROM THE CAMP' FIRE. 157 

crime is so mitigated that many have approved McNeil's deeds. So 
it was as regards terrible tragedies that marked these first days of dread- 
ful revolution in Texas. It was then a sparsely populated border State. 
The worst elements of eastern society, fleeing from minions of out- 
raged law in older States, sought refuge in Texas. In many districts 
few bonds of society or of good government were recognized. Secu- 
rity for life and property depended on each strong arm. Men differ- 
ing in reference to pending political questions naturally sought proper 
affinities, and Unionists were organized, as were secessionists, and 
each dreaded and hated the other class. There was not in North- 
western Texas a more highly esteemed gentleman than William C. 
Young. He had filled the office of district-attorney with distinguished 
ability, and was known and beloved everywhere. He and James 
Bourland, his devoted friend, were riding on horseback from Gaines- 
ville, Texas, to Bourland's home. Both were ardent secessionists, 
and Bourland was deemed the most influential and, perhaps, the best 
and oldest citizen of Northern Texas. Colonel Young was shot down 
by an assassin. 

" The killing of Young was the beginning of a series of vengeful 
enormities. Murder and arson were incidents of everyday life. It 
was ascertained that a plot was concocted involving the destruc- 
tion of towns and villages, and the taking off of Bourland and 
of each prominent citizen of the coimtry. . Bourland and his friends 
knew this to be a fact, and the end came after forty-one of the con- 
spirators were hanged to the great elm tree at Gainsville. Thirteen 
were hanged, after a fair trial, before a Judge-Lynch tribunal, in 
Plopkins County ; and three, I have been told, under the same circum- 
stances, and after full proof of the criminal purposes of the accused, 
at Austin. When Federal generals came into power in Texas, after 
inquiring into the facts affecting these wholesale executions by mob 
law, they deemed it proper to ignore offenses of Bourland, and of 
others like him, and punishment, after peace, was never inflicted 
for terrible deeds, justified perhaps by dangers that begat them. 
If the editor of the Gazette had lived at the time in Texas, he 
would surely forgive, if he could not forget. The people were 
not so bad ; but the times were sadly out of joint and extraordi- 
nary dangers demanded, in frontier commmiities, extraordinary 
securities." 

The newspaper man said that Bourland did not hang forty-one men 
to the elm tree at Gainesville because these were Unionists, but simply 
because internecine war demanded the extirpation of one or the other 
local party to the conflict. The Federal general, Curtis, was coming 
down from the Indian Territory, it was thought, into Texas, and con- 
spirators at Gainesville, in Hopkins County, and at Austin, had 
concerted plans to be executed when Federal armies appeared, involv- 
ing the extirpation of secessionists. The discovery of plots of this 
character impelled Bourland and others to adopt desperate remedies 
for dreadful evils. 



158 FAGOTS FROM THE CAMP FIRE. 

"When 1 was in Richmond, not long ago," said the journalist, 
"and was clerk of a congressional committee, I ascertained that quite 
forty thousand Federal soldiers had gone out of East Tennessee, and, 
from states south of the Ohio, not less than two hundred thousand 
men had entered the Federal service. Suppose you deduct two 
hundred thousand from Grant's and Sherman's armies and add two 
hundred thousand to those of Jefferson Davis. There is instituted an 
equivalent of four hundred thousand men added to Confederate 
strength. With this we would surely defeat the North and have on this 
continent that 'double-barreled' Union for which Davis and Yancey 
pray. For office-holders, I confess, it would be well, but I don't see 
in what the people are to be gainers. Duplication of governments 
signifies quadruplication of taxes; and governments are only taxing, 
l)lundering schemes of law-administration ; and that which is cheapest, 
and governs least, is commonly best." 

Mamie and Bessie were intent listeners, and Spratling gazed 
abstractedly into the fire-place when the newspaper man continued : 

"Our stories have been drawn mainly from Tennessee and the 
Gulf States. While I am dreaming of the results of this fearful war 
1 would tell Bessie and Mamie of a little episode in the history of 
progressive, grand events which they will never forget. I had been 
some days in Richmond, nearly a year ago, when the starving and 
half-clad women at the market — most of them widows of soldiers in 
Lee's army — finding that the money supplied would no longer give 
them bread, moved in a body to the Capitol. They proposed to 
appeal for relief to Governor Letcher. It was an unique and danger- 
ous mob of three or four thousand reckless, desperate, hungry, poorly 
clad women. 

" Hearing the shrieks and screams of the multitude, I ran from my 
room to the Capitol. When I entered the building the women were 
swarming into the open space between Clay's statue and the monu- 
ments reared in honor of Jefferson and Henry, and Governor Letcher's 
red head was visible amid the throng rapidly gathering upon the 
portico of the state-hou.se. I heard his friends ask, ' What can we do 
with them?' 

"'Soldiers are helpless and useless,' said the governor, 'we can't 
fire into that mob, and the women know it.' 

"I said to the Govrrnor that 'a steam fire-engine, guarded by a 
military company would put the poor creatures to flight.' 

" But the governor relied upon fluency of speech and gentle per- 
suasiveness and perhaps upon his good looks. The uglier a red-haired, 
red-visaged man, the handsomer he esteems himself. His Excellency's 
graces of person and manner and genuine eloquence availed nothing. 

"There was a gigantic, red-haired woman — she looked like another 
Letcher, in a homespun frock — who led the vociferous, shrieking 
throng. She shouted : 

" ' We want bread, not words ! Let us help ourselves ! Follow me !' 

"She went rapidly, throwing her hands wildly above her head. 



FAGOTS FROM THE CAMP FIRE. 159 

and shouting words of encouragement and exasperation to her lean, 
lank, meanly-clad, reckless, starving followers. They entered Main 
Street and desolated it. Storehouses were ransacked. They burdened 
themselves with every description of trumpery with which poverty- 
stricken trades-people filled wretched shelves. They moved to the 
quarter-master's depository of army supplies, and expelling clerks and 
guards, freighted themselves with bridles, saddles, and wagon covers. 
I saw a dozen women emerge from the building with saddles on their 
backs. When, at length, they discovered the commissariat, they 
threw aside everything they had appropriated at other places, and 
gathering up their outer skirts, filled their laps with flour and sugar. 
Each sought to take away, in this manner, the largest possible 
quantity, and when each had freighted her uplifted dress with all she 
could carry, she started, bare-legged, for her home. The spectacle 
became as ludicrous as it was pitiful. Merchants and soldiers followed 
in the train of this army of hungry women gathering up their scat- 
tered wares and public and private property. No great losses were 
sustained, and the incident only led to the adoption of measures by 
the public authorities designed to prevent the recurrence of such 
dangers. Food was issued to the poor wives and widows of soldiers 
themselves. But the rich and those in authority in Richmond never 
knew or measured the woes and miseries of the poor. I am sure an 
illustration will interest Bessie and Mamie. 

" One Sunday, w-hile in Richmond, a k\v days before the battle of 
Chancellorsville, I went to Hollywood, the famed cemetery of Rich- 
mond. Time, when peace is restored, will make it an attractive spot. 
Though the site is admirably chosen, and many of the monuments 
costly and tasteful, yet the grave-stones are all of recent date. I never 
cared to wander through a grave-yard in w^hich there are no old tomb- 
stones. Men just buried are too nearly allied to the living. The 
gulf that separates us is neither deep nor wide enough to excite those 
strangely .sad emotions experienced when we decipher time-worn 
epitaphs, ascribing to ashes beneath all the virtues of our race. Two 
ex-pre.sidents sleep in Hollywood ; and not far away there are count- 
less graves of soldiers of the South, the victims of insatiate revolution. 
Monumental marble will designate the resting places of statesmen who 
achieved all the ends of human ambition, but the graves of soldiers 
who gave their lives, as they believed, for their country's emancipa- 
tion, have no marks to distinguish burial places in which truest repre- 
sentatives of unselfish patriotism have returned to dust. When war no 
longer desolates the land, when prosperity reigns, and a grateful 
jjeople would honor the illustrious dead, there will not be wanting a 
mausoleum to tell posterity that Hollywood is consecrated in a 
nation's heart. There they lie, beneath those little hillocks, with 
rude boards as head-stones, the gallant men who fell in all the battles 
around Richmond. There, too, are those whose lives went away from 
bodies racked with pain in Richmond hospitals. Mothers and wives 
and sisters shall visit Hollywood through many coming years, from all 



i6o FAGOTS FROM THE CAMP FIRE. 

the Southern States, that they may view the spot where the loved and 
lost repose in undistinguished graves. 

"I stood upon holy ground. 

"The funeral train of poverty came in at the gateway as I was 
going out. A market wagon contained a little coffin of rough boards. 
A gray-haired negro was the driver, and three women, an old man, 
and half a dozen thinly-clad little girls and boys followed very slowly — 
all with measured steps and sad faces. As I was going out a little girl, 
eight or nine years old, poorly clad, was closing the gate. Her face 
was pretty, and her large lustrous eyes grew bright when I asked 
the name of the occupant of the coffin. She seemed to think that 
everybody should know that 'Mary' was dead. 

" 'It is strange you did not know Mary. I thought almost every- 
body knew her. She was so good, and gentle, and kind, and she was 
her mother's only child. I went to school with Mary.' 

"The simplicity and earnestness of the child interested me. I 
wished to know more of Mary and of that poor, heart-broken woman, 
so meanly attired, who was following with unsteady steps her only 
child to the grave, I cannot, of course, give the language of the 
little girl, but she said : 

" ' AVhen I used to look at Mary I wondered how people could ever 
call her homely ; there were so many shades of color in her eyes when 
I was talking to her, and the blood would come' and go in her pale 
cheeks. She used to help the little children across the muddy streets 
and give away her scanty meal to some poor child who was hungry at 
school. She would teach me, too, the hard, long words in my geog- 
rapli}-. When the other girls made fun of my dress because it had holes 
in it, and my mother there, who is poor, like Mary's, could not buy 
me another, Mary used to put her arms around me to conceal the rents. 
I used to think there was a pretty light around Mary's sweet face, like 
that which mother showed me in the picture of our Savior. Those who 
did not know Mary well, did not think she was so beautiful, but we 
little children did. She was kindest and gentlest to the poorest of 
us.' 

" i had never listened to an eulogium upon the dead more touching 
than this which fell from the tremulous lips and tearful eyes of Mary's 
friend. 

'• She is not homely now. The bright sun when it goes down again 
upon the little childish group who come tripping out of the old school- 
house shall not add luster to the changeful eyes and pale cheeks of 
Mary ; her seat in school is vacant ; her satchel lies idly on the shelf. 
The spider will weave his busy web upon the wall in Mary's garret, 
but there are no lustrous loving eyes to watch him. The heart-broken 
mother shall often dream that she hears, and listen in vain for the soft, 
.sweet accents of little Mary's voice ; she shall see Mary, not here, and 
many like her of whom the earth was not worthy. 

" How coldly and rudely the clods that struck Mary's coffin fell 
upon that mother's heart ! A piercing shriek escaped her lips. Then 



FAGOTS FROM THE CAMP FIRE. i6i 

all was still again, except the falling of the dull, heavy earth with 
which the old man filled the shallow grave. When all were leaving 
the place, I asked the school-child friend of Mary how she came to 
die. 

" 'I don't know,' she answered; ' Mother said that the war took 
bread from the poor in Richmond, and Mary's mother is very, very 
poor.' 

"I never think of these facts or of the miseries and vices of our 
race precipitated by this wicked, needless, fratricidal war that I do 
not involuntarily ask whether they who deem themselves statesmen, 
and as such inaugurated this conflict or made it unavoidable, will not 
be consigned to deeper depths of perdition by an outraged God of 
goodness than that which must be fathomed by common soldiers 
like ourselves. William L. Yancy, Jefferson Davis, A. G. Brown, 
Toombs, Wigfall, and the many like them, who followed in Yancy' s 
wake, constituted the dragon of the Apocalypse with seven heads and 
ten horns whose tail drew after it 'the stars of heaven and did cast them 
to earth.' I do not question their honesty or patriotism, mark you ; 
but only ask whether they have not outrivaled a De Golyer in paving 
hell with good intentions." 



CHAPTER XXIII. 



Woes of the People. — How Endured. — An Ancient (ieorgia Village. — Curious Stoi^ 
about Governor Gilmer and William H. Crawford. — Slave Life Fifty Years Ago. 
— Joseph Henry Lumpkin. — How African Slavery became African Servitude. 
— Providential Preparation for Freedom. 

The very day that the captain and Spratling returned to camp, 
Tunnel Hill and Dalton were evacuated by the Confederates and our 
way was open to the home of Mamie Hughes. There Bessie and her 
mother were gladly welcomed. Their purpose was to remain only a 
day and then go further south to their old home in Oglethorpe 
County. 

Mamie said, when she and Bessie met, "that the invitation, sent 
long before, had been accepted most unexpectedly. I am glad," she 
continued, "that you are here, but deplore the calamity that .sent you 
to our home." 

Bessie's father had gone to Oglethorpe and could not return because 
of the intervention of our army. It was necessary to communicate 
with him, and Mrs. Starnes was persuaded to remain with her newly- 
made friends until she could advise her husband of misfortunes that 
overwhelnied her. 

Such calamities were too numberless to excite sympathy, and, of 
every-day occurrence, were borne as complacently by the immediate 
sufferers as by their friends. People soon forgot the fallen when each 
day's list of the dead was countless. Death, in war, has no terrors, 
.save for the dying. Hunger and suffering are laughed at because 
death, the gate-way of escape, is so accessible. Courage, in such an 
age, is the only virtue worth the having; and he who shuddered 
when wealth became indigence, was the veriest of cowards. 

"When the Confederacy rises in the ruins of Lincoln's empire," 



FAGOTS FROM THE CAMP FIRE. 163 

said Mrs. Starnes, "I will still own the farm, and Mr. Spratling says 
he will reconstruct my modest dwelling." 

Spratling, now an unwilling (/uasi-'mvalid, was confined to the house 
by the imperious edicts of Bessie and Mamie. His neglected wound 
was painful, the shoulder swollen, and left arm useless. Wholesome 
food and women's watchful care wrought a speedy change, and when 
dancing at night and hunting by day and stories of army life during 
the long evenings were indulged, delicious odors of pine and cedar 
wood fires perfuming the commodious country house, Spratling rapidly 
regained his wonted vigor. 

The captain could not abandon Spratling; the editor and school- 
master were free to depart or remain; the editor's brother, like the 
Federal lieutenant, Hughes, had a month's furlough. 

A trusted negro servant was dispatched for Mr. Starnes, to Lexing- 
ton, in Oglethorpe County, the most venerable in its apparent 
antiquity of all the towns of Georgia. Green moss, on great boulders 
along white sandy roadways leading into the ancient town, is growing 
gray. Myriads of pebbles in the long-used streets are worn perfectly 
round by gliding feet of successive generations, and Sunday-school 
"scholars" are relieved of the necessity of buying marbles. Bob 
Toombs and Chief Justice Joseph Henry Lumpkin used to live in 
Lexington; but when the antique metropolis of Oglethorpe, fifty 
years ago, was finished and fenced in, they were left outside and 
migrated. They grew great; Lexington stood still. The venerable 
village could not contain them. In years long agone, William H. 
Crawford — deemed by the great Napoleon the greatest of Americans — 
had his home at Lexington. 

"There," said the newspaper man, "I saw this grand old man in 
extreme old age after he had been almost President of the United 
States, having competed for the office with Jackson, Clay, and Adams — 
I saw this gigantic old civilian, in my childhood, sitting on the circuit 
bench and determining a criminal prosecution in which Joseph Henry 
Lumpkin appeared for the defendant, an aged man, accused of steal- 
ing a sheep. He was palpably guilty; but Lumpkin's matchless 
eloquence won an acquittal, when Crawford, chiding the jury for its 
tears and weakness, set aside the verdict and ordered a new trial. 

"This William H. Crawford was the only American, perhaps, who 
knew the great Napoleon, personally and intimately. Among his 
private papers there were found, after his death, kindliest letters, I am 
told, from the great emperor. Napoleon could afford to deal with the 
great American as an equal and as a friend when state policy would 
not suffer him to unbend in the presence of a subject. 

"The other great man of Lexington, Joseph Henry Lumpkin, was 
the unrivaled barrister till he became the matchless judge. His 
learning, genius, and logical acumen compelled his professional 
elevation. He was a native-born abolitionist. When at college, at 
Princeton or Yale, he adopted and expressed opinions on the subject of 
negro servitude that enabled his pro-slavery rivals to defeat his honorable 



1 64 FAGOTS FROM THE CAMP FIRE. 

aspirations. But such were his unapproachable forensic abilities that 
the lawyers of Georgia were forced to remove him from their sphere of 
action. No sentence of death could be pronounced if Joseph Henry 
Lumpkin appealed to the jury, and, therefore, the orator was merged 
into the judge. His opinions, as Chief Justice of Georgia, are as 
admirable specimens of rhetorical logic as the finest that ever fell from 
the lips of the greatest Lord Chancellor. 

"But I may be impelled to speak by the prejudices of my youth," 
continued the editor. "I was not four years old when I saw the aged 
William H. Crawford sleeping on the wool-sack in Lexington, while 
Joseph Henry Lumpkin flooded the court-room with tears because a 
gray-liaired country burnpkin was forced by pangs of poverty to steal 
a sheep. 

"George R. Gilmer, when I was a boy, still lived in Lexington. 
He, too, was then very old. In another place I have written of his 
archaeological tastes and pursuits, and of the care and toil and 
money he devoted to the collection of antique and other curiosities 
of taste and learning. He had been governor and served in both 
branches of the United States Congress. He was the kindliest, 
most generous of men. I would never have violated a mound- 
builder's tomb or traced De Soto's devious path across the Gulf 
States if I had not heard Governor Gilmer descant upon dim out- 
lines of giant figures that peopled realms of his fancy with splendid 
visions of war, peace, homes, and cities of extinct races." 

The schoolmaster had been listening intently while the newspaper 
man was reviving phantom figures of departed greatness and when the 
fire burned low and kettle lid rattled and escaping steam sang a lullaby 
that begat silence and somnolency, the pedagogue said that, in 1S32, 
then a very young man, he taught a country school near Carter's 
Hill, in Montgomery County, Alabama. 

" Ingrams, Carters, Floyds, Barnets, Lees, Wares, Mooneys, Gil- 
mers, Merriwethers, and Du Pres were household names and words 
in the modest log-cabin in which I flogged limited learning into tow- 
headed urchins. I am induced to refer to these facts because I 
remember that one of my 'patrons' was induced by another to convey 
a letter enclosing a one thousand dollar United States bank-note to 
Governor Gilmer. Mr. D. delivered the letter to Governor Gilmer, 
telling him of its contents, and he remembered that the governor 
threw it carlessly into a desk. Two years elapsed. Governor Gilmer 
demanded payment by letter. The debtor wrote that he had sent the 
money by Mr. D., his neighbor, an honest man. The governor 
answered that he had never received it. Mr. D. mounted his horse — 
there were no railways in those days — and went to Lexington, more 
than three hundred miles. Governor Gilmer, when his old friend 
came, had no recollection of the letter; but Mr. D. had forgotten 
nothing. He went to the room in which the governor was sitting 
when he delivered the bank-note two years before; he caused the desk 



FAGOTS FROM THE CAMP FIRE. 165 

to be opened and there found the letter, its waxen seal unbroken, 
containing the money. Governor Gilmer's chagrin was painful and 
lasting, so my friend, the Alabamian, informed me. Whenever, after- 
ward, the Alabamian visited his kindred about Lexington, he was 
always entertained at a festival given by Governor Gilmer." 

The newspaper man left his seat and stood facing the schoolmaster. 

"Do you know," said the writer for the press, "that he was my 
father who bore that letter to Governor Gilmer? I was not old enough 
to go to school when you taught near Carter's Hill, but I knew after- 
ward, all the people you have named. I remember when the Creek 
Indians burned the houses and slaughtered the people of the neighbor- 
hood. I remember how they slew eight of nine passengers on the 
stage coach just after it left Montgomery." 

Of course the pedagogue had forgotten nothing of facts to which 
the journalist adverted. He confessed a fresh bond of union between 
himself and friend and said that "churches, newspapers, and school- 
masters had done a great work in Alabama in a brief period. Red 
men have disappeared, there are free schools and free churches and 
people everywhere, and railways and steamers and the highest progres- 
sive intelligence and civilization. Less than thirty years have passed, 
within which all this has been achieved. Montgomery, the wretched 
little village of one hundred calkins when I first saw it, has fifteen 
thousand inhabitants. 

"But they were a rude people when I wielded the birchen rod in 
the log cabin near Carter's Hill, ten or twelve miles from Montgom- 
ery. I saw a farmer sell his good-looking wife, a pretty white woman 
she was, for a thousand dollars to a richer neighbor; I saw Kin 
Mooney playing poker with a friend, at five dollars a game, in the log 
church, which was also the schoolhouse, on Sunday, while the good Bap- 
tist brother, Jack Robinson, expounded the scriptures in this sanctuary. 
I saw a savage overseer tie a negro slave, Patrick by name, to a log and 
draw a wild black cat, by the tail, down the negro's naked back, from 
his shoulders to his heels. The infernal process was thrice repeated. 
Patrick shrieked and swooned. A strong solution of salt and vinegar 
was then poured over the senseless negro's back. When he recovered 
his senses he was gagged. He wore the gag, constantly moving it to 
one side, till it carved a slit in the corner of his mouth. The hapless 
negro could talk a little and drink a little, still wearing the gag. It 
was made of iron, having hinges, and was locked behind his neck. A 
flat piece of iron, projecting inwardly, from the rim, entered the 
mouth. I describe it because, having lived always in the South, it 
was the only 'gag' I ever saw. When Patrick could talk, eat and drink, 
wearing the gag, the overseer belled him. An iron belt about the 
body and another around the neck sustained an iron rod extending 
along the spine, three feet above Patrick's head. To the end of this 
rod a bell was attached; and, wearing all this machinery of iron, 
Patrick was forced by the fiend incarnate to pick cotton. The 
incentive to this cruelty was jealousy of Patrick's influence with his 



1 66 FAGOTS FROM THE CAMP FIRE. 

master, then absent. When he came home, Patrick, of course, was 
liberated, given a gun, and instructed to settle with the overseer. He, 
hearing of the course of events, fled to Texas. 

" There was African slavery m those days. It is African scrvihtdc 
now. The relations of the races, as seen in the conduct of those 
about us, even now listening to what I say, and shuddering while I 
tell of the woes of Patrick, show that African slavery, even if party 
leaders had never organized war in organizing secession, was no more. 
African 'slavery' does not exist, and only African 'servitude.' Within 
these brief thirty years the institution has been wholly changed with 
the relations of the two races. Providence, it seems, prepared whites 
and blacks, by slow, inscrutable processes, for the social conditions 
and facts of to-day. On the statute-books of states, slave codes 
remain unrepealed ; but they are obsolete, and have been for years. 
Politicians rave and roar, and abuse one another, and excite infinite 
sectional prejudices. 

"Fearing they may be reviled as abolitionists, our party leaders 
dare not reform barbarous slave codes, and these have slowly lapsed, 
unrepealed, into desuetude. The law inhibits books and yet negroes 
are everywhere taught to read and write. Preachers are hired every- 
where to preach especially in negro churches, and the story I tell of 
Patrick's woes, which I witnessed, could gain credence on no southern 
plantation of to-day." 



CAHAPER XXIV. 



The Negro as an Inseparable Adjunct of Southern Industry. — " Missis, de Yanks 
is acomin'." — The Schoohiiaster on the Character and Conduct of the Negro. — 
" Yaller-Gal Angels." 

How thoroughly a soldier becomes part and parcel of a great mass, 
losing consciousness of individuality, we have seen, and how, there- 
fore, esprit dc corps supplants personal heroism, and how one strong 
man, of any race or latitude, becomes as valuable as any other of equal 
strength, was often asserted and illustrated when Major-General Pat 
Cleburne and many others of the best and wisest soldiers and states- 
men of the South, in 1863-64, urged the enlistment as soldiers, and 
liberation as men, of the negroes of the South. Destiny and Jefferson 
Davis interposed and Africa was freed by the North and not by the 
South. Thus the negro, an inseperable adjunct of southern industry, 
civilization, and government, loves, obeys, and serves the North, and 
always, in affairs of government, involving freedom and slavery, obeys 
the injunctions of northern party leaders. 

At Mamie's home there were more than three hundred slaves. 
Until Lieutenant Hughes and his friends came, the helpless household 
had no other guardians than these negroes and none could have given 
more perfect security. They were devoted to the persons and interests 
of their white owners, and never was a suspicion entertained, even 
when detatchments of Federal cavalry traversed the country in all 
directions, and these negroes knew how thoroughly "the shell of the 
hollow Confederacy was broken," that negroes plotted against the 
security. of the whites. 

It happened, at the period of which these pages tell, that the 
Confederate forces were slowly and constantly retreating. Even while 
the captain and his friends were guests of Lieutenant Hughes, and 
while pretty Bessie Starnes, half crazed by her affection for the Lieu- 
tenant and admiration and love of Spratling, the Confederate army 



1 68 FAGOTS FROM THE CAMP FIRE. 

was slowly and sullenly moving south toward Resaca and Adairsville, 
leaving this summer residence of the Hughes family within the Federal 
lines. 

Of the retrogression of the Confederate forces, inmates of the 
Hughes household were first advised by the appearance at the place of 
four mounted men in blue overcoats. A breathless, excited negro, 
entering the breakfast room, where the family were seated at table, 
announced : 

"Missis, de Yanks is acummin' down dar in de road. Dere won't 
be nary chicken left on de place!" and Jack rubbed his hands 
together, and amazed by the excitement he begat, set his back against 
the wall, and grinned and twisted his body and looked from right to 
left, and when asked again and again, " How many Yanks are there?" 
he only stared vacantly in the faces of his inquisitors. 

Spjatling forgot his wound, and with the rest, armed himself, and 
went out. The prowling cavalrymen did not propose to encounter a 
number of men greater than their own, and at once retired. No 
shots were fired, but the Confederates knew that these four would be 
fifty Federal soldiers when next a descent was made upon the planta- 
tion of Mrs. Hughes. 

"Three or four days hence," said the captain, "these scouts will 
have returned to camp and told of our presence here. A force will 
be sent to capture such stragglers as we are and to gather in deserters 
voluntarily remaining at points recently occupied by Confederates. 
We must move at an early day. 

"Lieutenant," he continued, addressing Mr. Hughes, "I don't 
know whether I will regret more the termination of this delightful visit 
or the necessity which requires you to accompany us. If I can, when I 
return to General Cleburne's head -quarters, I will make some arrange- 
ment by which you may not be sent to a prison-pen. No exchanges 
are made; the Confederacy is starving; its soldiers are often half fed; 
and the condition of prisoners of war must be horrible. Soldiers are 
worth more to us than to you, and }ou can not afford to exchange, 
when your resources are infinite as humanity and ours are restricted 
to sparse poinilations of the Gulf States. It is a great pity that the 
cartel is suspended; and I must confess that, while we are delighted 
as your guests, we are grieved that you are our prisoner. By remain- 
ing, we can not serve you or those dear to you. Our presence will 
only invite attack. If we won at first, we would surely be overwhelmed 
at last. This might involve the safety of women and destruction of 
your delightful home. 

"We must soon march." 

This was said in the presence of the household gathered in the 
hallway. Mrs. Hughes gazed tenderly in the face of her son. She 
deplored his fate from which there was seemingly no escape, He was 
paroled and could not fly, even if an opportunity were presented. If 
captured by Federal soldiers, he could save himself and guard his home, 
with those he loved. Fie was silent and helpless as the mother. 



FAGOTS FROM THE CAMP FIRE. 169 

Neither Bessie nor Mamie lifted their eyes from the floor. Bessie 
knew that Spratling and the lieutenant were studying her face, and 
Mamie could only listen, while the color fled from her cheeks, as 
measured words fell slowly from the captain's lips, announcing her 
separation from him and from her brother. 

"In times like these, when we part, we can never hope to meet 
again," said the tearful Mrs. Hughes. "Some one or more may 
return, but all of you, never! never! It is dreadful to think, but 
when I see you strong men going out of my door, I see you stepping 
down into your graves. I am gr.iteful because you have been so 
generous to my son, and it is no fault of yours that he must leave me. 
My prayers and blessings will follow you." 

Death-like pallor swept over the faces of Bessie and Mamie. The 
facts of the moment were too painful for their contemplation. Mamie 
caught Bessie's hand and drawing her to her side, both, with bowed 
heads, hurried silently away. Mrs. Hughes followed, and the sad 
convocation was slowly dissolved. 

When we sat, that cool winter evening, about the broad, blazing 
hearth, the schoolmaster said "he had been studying the character and 
conduct of negroes all his life. While they do no violent deeds and 
share, as a race, in none of the toils or dangers incident to their own 
deliverance, they rarely fail to show, when the test is applied, that 
they prefer freedom to servitude. 

"They have uniformly forgotten personal attachments, such as 
subsist between your servants. Lieutenant, and yourself, to show that 
they prefer freedom to slavery. They uniformly betray the Confed- 
erates and however earnest in assertions of personal devotion to their 
owners, are privately and really loyal to the Union. I have found, 
to the extent that their intelligence may make them trustworthy, that 
they are useful and efficient spies. They never fail to disclose places 
of concealment of persons and property, and evince, always, to 
the extent that they deem it safe, unmixed loyalty to the 'Stars 
and Stripes.' I tell you this because I have seen how this family is 
disposed to trust, implicitly, the asserted fidelity of these negroes. I 
tell you. Lieutenant, your mother will be betrayed by them. She will 
lose every valuable article she conceals if these 'devoted household 
servants' suspect the place of concealment. The poor negro thinks 
to aid and thus win favor in the eyes of blue-coated patriotism by 
betraying these confidences. The blue-coat never shares the spoils 
with the negro. The negro does not ask it. His impulses are higher 
and nobler than those of the white man. He would only serve the 
cause this white man espouses. The white man — the camp-follower 
and not the soldier — is content if he may fill his purse. 

"Did it ever occur to you that you may direct any genuine bullet- 
headed African to do any three acts, and that he will obey, but never 
discharging the three tasks in the order in which you name them? 
His head is too thick for him to think consecutively. He never recks 
of the morrow. He is always perfectly blest in the abundance of 



I70 FAGOTS FROM THE CAMP FIRE. 

to-day. Is not this race-peculiarity to be ascribed to race-habits, the 
outgrowth of countless centuries of slavery? They have never been 
subjected to the necessity of providing for present or future wants. 
Their own needs have never shaped their actions; and, therefore, their 
boundless unselfishness, and their heedlessness and incapacity to think 
for the future. Their round, thick skulls and brain-forces are con- 
formed to facts and necessities of centuries. 

"It is true that in Avide districts of the Gulf States, denuded by 
conscription of arms-bearing whites, negroes outnumbering whites as ten 
and twenty to one, there has occurred no negro outbreak. There is no 
negro criminality, and perfect order, peace, security, and industry are 
maintained. Confederate armies are fed and clothed and kept in the 
field by negro industry ; but let me assure you that each negro, the old 
and the young, seeks freedom, and prefers it even to this serfdom or 
peonage subsisting on this estate, or ranche, as termed in Mexico. 
Wherever liberated they have never consented to re-enslavement, and it 
is most fortunate that they have been gradually elevated by 'slavery,' 
which has become 'servitude,' and then serfdom, while local statutes 
remained unchanged and unenforced. The frightful quarrel between the 
abolitionists and secessionists made local statutory law irrepealable, but 
the negro code, like the fact of original African slavery, fell of its own 
bloody, barbarous weight into desuetude. The age of preparation is 
passed, and that of realization, perhaps, is come. Who can fathom 
the mysteries of God's i)rovidence in His dealings with races and 
nations? 

"Wherever liberated, as I have seen in Tennessee and Kentucky, 
these creatures have wandered away at once from their homes. They 
can not otherwise realize the fact of absolute freedom. They could 
not otherwise enjoy it to their full bent. The 'old massa's' presence 
and supreme authority was still confessed in the old cabin occupied 
through a lifetime of servitude, and they could only divest themselves 
of its influence by going into exile. But, wherever freed, they have 
sought supposed delights incident to freedom, which never come. 
They are still slaves; not of the white man, but of hunger and thirst 
and cold. 

"The forty acres and a mule have never descended, as did the 
beasts of the fields in a curtain suspended before St. Peter, from the 
opened heavens, upon the hapless African. After a time these 
liberated blacks will realize exactions imposed by nature's laws, and 
there is not on God's footstool a better laboring population, or one 
more simple and kindly, more contented or law-abiding. As we see 
them in the rich cotton and sugar producing districts to-day, where 
they are still slaves, so will they be when freedom strikes shackles 
from their souls. Such masters as you. Lieutenant, can lose nothing 
by the extinction of the law of slavery ; the practical fact, if it be a 
fact here to-day, will still subsist." 

"Yes," interposed Spratling, who had been listening drowsily to 
this soliloquy of the pedagogue, while the captain on one side of the 



FAGOTS FROM THE CAMP FIRE. 171 

room with Mamie, and Bessie and the lieutenant on the otlier, 
spoke at intervals, in subdued tones, — "Yes," said Spratling, "I 
asked that black rascal who pretended to be so badly scared this 
morning when the Yankee scouts came, what he proposed to do when 
he was set free. 

" 'I dunno, massa,' he answered, 'but I'z gwine to sleep in de sun- 
shine, ropped up in pancakes, en yaller-gal angels, dey'll pore lasses 
ober me.' " 

"There's a heavenly picture of perfect negro beatitude, and its 
realization is coming," said the schoolmaster. 



CHAPTER XXV. 



Newspaper Life. — Journalism under Difficulties. — A Journalistic Repast. — Jamaica 
Rum. 

"I am sure that people in future years and centuries will be amazed 
by accounts of our present modes of living. We journalists," said the 
editor, "have been reduced to the utmost straits. I printed two 
issues of my Register on pretty wall-paper, using only one side of each 
sheet. It happened, possibly, because the Confederate Government 
was getting out a new issue of notes and bonds and monopolized the 
service of the paper-mills. My only resource was wall-paper owned 
by a cheerful Hebrew, and the reading matter of the striped sheets 
was confined to one side of each. It was a queer show when the people, 
having supplied themselves with accounts of the latest battle, sat along 
the curbstones and in their doorways holding up the ugly striped, red, 
white, blue, black, and figured sheets before their eager faces. I was 
employed, when its editor, John B. Dumble, an Ohio Democrat, was 
sick, to conduct, for a short time, a daily paper in Atlanta. Sam C. 
Reid and Dr. I. E. Nagle, two army correspondents of my own 
newspaper, were in Atlanta at the time. It happened that a blockade- 
runner had entered Wilmington and supplied us abundantly with 
Jamaica rum. I paid eighty dollars a gallon and was not aware of the 
fact that each newspaper of the place, and there were four dalies then 
published in Atlanta, was in like manner conciliated by the generous 
importer. There was a famous restaurateur in Atlanta. He drew his 
supplies of early vegetables and fruits from Florida and commonly 
spread, though he paid forty cents per pound for salt, a very attractive 
table. He had no wine, and only the white country whiskey of the 
period. I discovered my opportunity in the possession of the Jamaica 
rum, and therefore ordered dinner for eight newspaper men. What 



FAGOTS FROM THE CAMP FIRE. 



173 



was my astonisment when I went to dinner, that I encountered no 
members of the 'press-gang' except Ried and Nagle. The absentees 
did not even deign to send apologies for the non-acceptance of my 
invitation. Nagle and Reid had each seen, during the morning, 
two of the noble profession, and we inferred, from the condition of 
these two, that all the rest, as fortunate as I had been, had received a 
gallon, or even more, of the delicious product of Jamaician distilleries. 
We three sat down to drink the rum and dispatch the viands before 
us. 

•' It was finally proposed and agreed that each of us, and each absent 
journalist, should contribute a 'rousing dinner-table speech to the 
delights of the rum occasion.' We sat to work, and each furnished, 
within three or four hours, two columns of matter for my friend's and 
my own newspaper. \W wrote and published our own and supposed 
speeches, as genuine, of all the invited editors. We made the ancient 
and venerated McClanahan pronounce a heartfelt eulogium upon 
Andrew Jackson Democracy. We reproduced, as Watterson's harangue, 
the substance of his unique . and inimitable delineation of Parson 
Brownlow's character. It was believed that the parson had died a 
few days before. Bumble's incisive logic characterized his dinner- 
table talk. Dill was made to utter a few sentences laudatory of the 
women of the time, and the whole of these speeches appeared next 
morning. Readers of the Appeal and of the Register supposed 
that the dinner was enjoyed by many guests, and that the speeches 
were welcomed with loud applause. This was natural enough ; but 
Nagle, Reid, and I were especially dumfounded when we met, three 
days later, to find that each editor, but one, supposed his published 
speech genuine ; that he had made it as stated, and that his obliv- 
iousness of the incidents of the occasion was wholly due to the over- 
powering influence of Jamaica rum. I congratulated McClanahan 
next morning after the supposed festival, on his eloquent tribute to 
the rock-ribbed secession Democracy. He looked at me doubtingly. 
I said : 

" ' Mack, you were a little intoxicated, you remember, but you had 
yoiir wits about you, and )our talking tackle was never in better 
condition.' 

" I produced a copy of McClanahan 's own paper and pointed out 
passages in his speech which I especially approved. 

"Still wearing a puzzled look, and rubbing his eyes, McClanahan 
at last concluded that he had been unconsciously ' the orator of the 
occasion.' When soon afterward congratulated by Nagle, Mack never 
hesitated a moment, but replied : 

" 'Yes, Doctor, I had been taking a little rum, but made a 

good speech; didn't I?' 

" Congressmen print speeches, written but never delivered, and 
distribute them among their innocent constituencies, and Congressmen 
have speeches written for them that are delivered as their own ; but 
here we see that editors not only have speeches written, but delivered 



174 FAGOTS FROM THE CAMP FIRE. 

and printed as their own, of which they never heard or dreamed. 
But the editors deserved the more praise and less censure in this, 
that each honestly supposed he made the speech ascribed to him, and 
each earnestly congratulated the other because of his triumph, and 
the innocent people were not sought by the journalists to be hum- 
bugged." 



CHAPTER XXVI. 



Lieutenant Hughes Recites his Adventures in Southern Missouri. — Wonders of the 
Lowlands. — Reckless Freaks of Dame Fortune. — A Rebel Negro and Narrow 
Escape — Two L'nnamed Confederate Heroes. 

Lieutenant Hughes was not loquacious. His position as host and as 
our prisoner, and, possibly, his doubtful acceptance as a professed suitor 
of Bessie Starnes, silenced him. His conduct toward her while she 
was beneath his roof was, necessarily, in his eyes, most guarded. She 
was his sister's friend, and, as such, his guest. He was, as we beheld 
his action, studiously formal. He seemed no more desirous of 
amusing and entertaining Bessie than others of his guests. He said, 
with abstracted manner, one evening, that stories we had been telling 
recalled an incident that befell him when, detailed on special service, 
he went to a little town, New Madrid, in Missouri. 

"With one hundred men, I was sent eight or ten miles southwest of 
the place to capture or destroy a guerrilla camp. A bright, good- 
natured, grinning negro, very black, came to our headquarters on the 
low ])lain, in the rear of New Madrid, to tell me that one Captain H. 
E. Clark, a rude, energetic rebel, who had been capturing our scouts 
and cutting off foraging parties, might be easily taken prisoner or 
destroyed. The negro said that Clark had done him some grievous 
wrong, and that he proposed to avenge it. I applied to the command- 
ing officer of the post, to whom this 'contraband' recited his story 
as he had to me. I must confess that now and then I had doubts of 
the negro's veracity, and vague apprehensions of betrayal were sug- 
gested ; but negroes had been found faithful always, and I could not 
well see how one would have the courage to attempt treason to truth, 
and to himself, and the cause of his own freedom. 

"In any event, I was instructed to take one hundred chosen men 
and capture or destroy Clark and his freebooters. 

"It is a wonderful country just west of New Madrid. The streams 



176 FAGOTS FROM THE CAMP FIRE. 

occupy deep channels, or crevices, carved out by the earthquake of 
1811-12. The water flows through densest weeds and cresses. 
Brightest flowers bloom and blossom above the surface, and these 
strange, deep creeks, emptying into the murky Mississippi, are of 
pellucid clearness. When crossing these streams, we could see fish 
disporting themselves ten feet below the surface. The country had 
been lifted up by the eathquake shocks of 181 i-i 2 so that artificial 
drains, said to have connected the Mississippi with the St. Francis and 
White, lateral and tributary streams, were broken by this upheaval of 
the land, and the superabundant water of the great river was left to 
follow the river's main channel, and submerge farms and houses along 
its resistless course. States have constructed mighty earthen walls to 
confine it to its deep and tortuous course ; but it defies every obstruc- 
tion, and carves out its path along the highest ridge between the par- 
allel highlands, fifty miles a])art, extending from Cairo almost to the 
sea. ^V'hen the water first leaves the overcharged main channel, it 
holds most mud in suspension, and then, too', this water moves most 
slothfuUy, and, of course, at that moment it deposits most mud and 
most rapidly. Therefore, the banks are highest at the river's edge, 
and therefore you hear people say they descend the Mississippi in 
steamers and look down upon the tops of planters' residences and mills 
hard by the uplifted 'inland sea.' Therefore, the terrors of a crevasse 
and frightful force of the pent-up flood-tide when a crayfish, or malicious 
person, or the slow abrasion of the soil has given vent to the accumu- 
lated waters. I saw the levee break one morning late in May, a year 
ago. Houses and fences disappeared as if swallowed by a maelstrom. 
The })eople fled as from ' the wrath to come ;' and when the resistless 
torrent reached the forest, one hundred yards distant, mightiest trees, 
the growth of centuries, went down as did the reeds of the canebrake. 
The roaring of the rushing flood, and crashing and breaking of falling 
cypresses, two and three hundred feet high, shook the earth, and no 
temi)est's roar was ever comparable with this echoing thunder of the 
drunken mighty ' father of floods.' Here it carves out for itself a new 
channel and slowly renews the process of upbuilding its own banks. 
In this it is only aided by the construction of levees, those frail earthen 
walls designed to hedge it in. It rises with successive floods, higher 
and higher above the marshland plain, until accident or resistless in- 
ertia of heaped up floods breaks down all barriers, and pretty homes 
and redundant crops are again overwhelmed. But standing at any 
time or place on the shore of the Mississippi, and listening to the 
sullen roar of its tawny waters, one always confesses the sublime 
majesty of the mighty river. There is no such impressive embodi- 
ment of the ideal of the River of Death, forever sweeping countless 
myriads into the ocean of eternal rest, as this, which chants forever a 
sonorous melancholy requiem over graves of nations and cities, and 
of unknown, forgotten races, that once dwelt along its shores. There 
is infinite sadness in sombre forests of impenetrable gloom and density 
lining the low, flat shores, and shutting out the sun's rays. It trends 



FAGOTS FROM THE CAMP FIRE. 177 

away to one or the other side of its earthen prison walls, and, leaning 
lazily against it, groans and roars as if its sluggish movements of 
measureless force were painful to the monstrous river. When weary 
of resting against the eastern, it slowly moves to the western side of 
its ever-changeful channel. Its wayward lawlessness is as marvelous 
as memories of pilots who watch, beneath moon and stars and mocking 
dancing shadows of the night, its ever-varying courses and measure by 
miniature whirlpools on its surface, the depth of boiling billows. 

" But I was going to tell you of a negro's treason to the Union. 
It is a single confessed instance, and I was its victim. Of course the 
black rascal was my guide to the guerrilla Clark's hiding place. My 
force was compelled to follow a narrow path across the swamp. Any 
deviation from the track, only wide enough for one horseman, was 
almost certain death. Quagmires were bottomless. I became inter- 
ested, as we were going out of New Madrid, in a description a raw 
recruit from Tennessee, named Tillman, was giving me of Reelfoot 
Eake, and of its strange origin on the eastern side of the river, and 
made the intelligent youth promise to recite the whole story as soon 
as we had leisure, by the camp fire. 

" Meanwhile, it occurred to me that we had traveled ten or fifteen, 
when the negro had said we need only go eight miles. I caused the 
command to halt. The negro was brought into my presence. I stated 
to him that his integrity was questioned, and that if he did not lead 
us at once to Clark's den I would have him shot. I ordered a trust- 
worthy sergeant to ride beside or near the negro, and shoot him if, 
within the next half hour, we were not at Clark's hiding place. 
Within twenty minutes I heard the report of a pistol, and riding rapidly 
forward I encountered a corporal, who said that the negro had taken 
advantage of his perfect knowledge of the paths through the swamp, 
and of the different appearances of the miry and of hard ground, and 
had separated himself and the sergeant from the main body of my 
command, and that the ' black rascal had shot the sergeant dead and 
disappeared.' 

"Fortunately, it seemed, we could see an ' opening,' as woodsmen 
term a 'clearing,' half a mile ahead, and moved rapidly toward it. 
Instead of a barn, we found a 'gin-house.' Its body rested on pil- 
lars — great trees hewn square — twelve feet high. Within the building, 
above these pillars, was the gin that separates the seed from the cotton, 
and below, on the ground and inside the pillars, was the great cogged 
wheel and its lever, to which mules are attached, that the gin may 
be driven to do its office. Here we camped for the night. 

"Knowing Clark's strength, I was not apprehensive of an assault; 
but I posted a strong picket force, and taking with me the youthful 
Tennesseean recruit who had interested me during the day, I ordered 
my men to destroy no property, but make themselves comfortable 
under and about the gin-house. In compliance with an invitation 
from the widowed owner of the estate, I went to the 'big house,' as 
designated by the negro who had brought the note of invitation. The 

12 



1 78 FAGOTS FROM THE CAMP FIRE. 

widow first appeared. After tendering me the hospitalities of her 
delightful home, she introduced her daughter, a pretty maiden, blush- 
ing into perfect womanhood. I was charmed by the confiding 
kindliness of the widow, and fascinated by the bright eyes and dewy 
lips and winsome smiles of the pretty daughter. The widow devoted 
herself to the youthful Tennesseean, while the daughter was evidently 
most willing that I should be well pleased." 

It may be proper to add, parenthetically, that Bessie Starnes was 
silently listening to this recital as made by Lieutenant Hughes, and I 
could not help watching the color come and go in her changeful, tell- 
tale face. Her eyes were fixed upon the blazing logs in the broad, 
deep fire-place, while she listened intently to the story, and whether 
the more because of dangers that threatened the lieutenant at the 
hands of armed men, or of a woman, bending every energy to achieve 
a perfect conquest, I could not divine. 

The lieutenant said that he was hungry, and that it occurred to him 
that the meal which he liad been in^'ited to share was unaccountably 
delayed. 

"I looked at my watch," said the lieutenant, "and found it was 
nine o'clock. I did not see the reason for this tardiness, and became 
a little restive. My camp was half a mile away, and I said to the 
mistress of the house that I would walk down the road a short distance 
and learn that everything was quiet at the gin-house. The Tennesseean 
accompanied me. Going out, I observed a spur, freshly worn, lying 
on the ground. I said to the Tennesseean : 

" 'Some one left hurriedly when we came, losing this spur. Per- 
haps he was a courier sent to Clark's hiding place to advise him of 
our presence here. Perhaps supper is delayed that we may be 
detained till Clark may come and capture us. He spares no prisoners, 
I am told. He is a lawless fellow, and his followers are yellow-faced 
dwellers in these malarial swamps. Ignorant and murderous as the}' 
are, I am not willing to fall into their hands. Do you ride back to 
our camp, taking my horse with you, and return instantly wath thirty 
men, stationing them in the verge of this grove, within fifty yards of 
the house. Send no pickets to the edge of the sw-amp. Let Clark 
come. Tell Lieutenant Bradly, my second in command, to be watch- 
ful, and do you let none of Clark's gang escape. 1 will come to the 
door occasionally, only to listen, of course, and thus know that every- 
thing is quiet at the gin-house. When I am sure danger is imminent, 
a white handkerchief will be shown by me, and you must advance.' 

" I was quite sure that the widow had instituted signals by which she 
advised Clark's men when to approach the house, and I instructed the 
Tennesseean to ascertain whether the widow placed a light in any 
window that could be seen from the swamp. 

"I re-entered the house, and telling mother and daughter that 
everything was quiet at my encampment, I stated, carelessly, that the 
night was beautiful, and moon and stars shone brilliantly. I then 
added that since everything betokened a night of perfect repose, I 



FAGOTS FROM THE CAMP FIRE. 179 

had discharged my orderly and sent my horse to the gin-house. The 
ladies smiled approvingly, while I was only fearful that Clark's gang 
might make a descent upon the house before my orders could be 
executed. In fact I began to suspect that the house would be sur- 
rounded by my enemies while I was at supper, and therefore the 
dela}' in inviting me to the table. I was certainly very hungry, but 
was never less anxious to appease hunger. I supposed that half an 
hour would elapse before my men M'ould occupy the grove in front 
and west of the residence, while I believed that Clark would approach 
stealthily from the swamp, east of the farm and half a mile distant. 
My anxiety was two-fold. I feared I might be captured, and then 
that I would fail to capture Clark, whose force I was ordered to 'cap- 
ture or destroy. ' But the widow and daughter still exerted themselves, 
nervously, as I imagined, to entertain me, and still no allusion was 
made to the meal I had been invited to share. I was morally certain, 
as the spur at the, doorway indicated, that when I was invited to 
occupy an apartment in the house, a mounted messenger had been 
dispatched to Clark. 

"Anxious and watchful as I was, I became profoundly interested in 
the good dame's intelligent account of her sojourn in New Madrid. 
She said : 

" 'This is a wonderful country, with a wonderful history. These 
deep streams, enclosed within precipitous banks, all appeared in one 
night. My father told me that when he went to bed one night in his 
cabin, that stood fifty yards from this spot, in the winter of 181 2-13, 
there was no running stream between this farm and the prosperous 
trading village of New Madrid. The whole country, of an area fifty 
miles square, had been conveyed by the United States Government 
to General Morgan for his services in the old revolutionary war. He 
never parted with the title, except that he gave many farms and town 
lots to his friends. The rest is simply held by that right, as I am told, 
which possession gives. But the town prospered till the country, as 
my neighbors say, "tuk the ager," and sulphurous flames i.ssued 
from the earth, and heaps of stone, coal, and sand were forced to the 
surface, and the whole country west of us for one hundred miles was 
lifted up eight or ten, and in some places, twenty feet. Transverse 
streams, said to have been artificial, that used to connect the Mis- 
sissippi with the head waters of the White and St. Francis Rivers, 
])reventing the submergence of the intervening land by the Mississippi's 
greatest floods, were upheaved and broken. Great lakes, said to be 
fathomless, were formed. One I have visited on the other side of the 
river is ten or fifteen miles long ; and, looking down into its transpa- 
rent depths, I could see the tops of trees standing erect far below the 
surface, that had once towered two and even three hundred feet above 
the lowlands. The country went down and pellucid water came up. 
It is only the visible portion of a great underground sea into which 
the underground rivers of Mammoth and other Kentucky and Tennes- 
see caverns discharge themselves. I have slept in Union City, not 



iSo FAGOTS FROM THE CAMP FIRE. 

far east from the Mississippi and near this Reelfoot Lake. When 
railway trains come by at night, I have fancied, when the earth was 
shaken until the candle fell from the mantel, and when I could hear the 
hollow, cavernous roar seemingly far beneath my feet — I have fancied 
that Union City rested above a mightier than Reelfoot Lake and 
deeper than Mammoth Cave, and that I might awake some bright 
morning afloat in a newly discovered Mediterranean as fathomless as 
Reelfoot Lake. On the fatal night of which I was telling, when New 
Madrid was destroyed, the Mississippi lost its reckoning. The current 
of the river was turned backward, and Neil B. Holt, who now lives in 
Memphis, then descending the river in a flat-boat, was brought backward 
towards Cairo, forty miles. The mighty drain of the continent abso- 
lutely changed its course. It must have discharged itself, when this 
whole region was upheaved during that convulsive night, into these 
underground seas and lakes, and thus the covering of Reelfoot Lake 
was lifted up by superabundant water ; and when the river resumed its 
course towards the gulf and the surcharged lake was relieved, the lid 
fell in, and this famed resort of fishermen, with its pellucid water, 
wholly unlike that of the Mississippi, for the first time mirrored dense 
forests and sun, moon, and stars in its transparent bosom. But the 
Mississippi is always going east, while the great rivers of Europe, that 
run north and south, move their channels toward the west. Why this 
difference, I cannot tell ; but the Mississippi may yet enter and dis- 
charge itself into these seas underlying portions of Tennessee and 
Kentucky, and I hope to live long enough to see the result. I am sure 
they have to-day no connection with the majestic, visible drain of the 
continent. Suppose the Mississippi find its way into Reelfoot Lake, 
and disappear forever? 

'* * But I was going to tell of ludicrous and terrible incidents I 
witnessed when Bishop Cjeneral Polk landed here, late in the summer 
of 1861, with five or six thousand men. He came on all sorts of 
steamboats and on flats towed by steamers. I went to the ri\'er bank 
to witness the landing of this mighty army. Living always in these 
solitudes, I had never dreamed that there were as many men on the 
face of the earth as came from these living, floating hives. There was 
moored in the midst of the fleet, and just at my feet, a little steamer, 
which I was told contained all the gunpowder and ordnance-stores for 
this mighty army. 

"'The army had disembarked and lined the shore. There were 
not more than twenty or thirty persons on each of twenty or more 
steamers moored side by side. This vessel, which was freighted with 
gunpowder and fixed ammunition, was discovered to be on fire in the 
rear of its wheelhouse. I never witnessed such an exhibition of terror. 
The army recognized, as I did not, the hazards of the moment. I saw 
everybody running. Boats half secured at the shore were left to drift 
down the current. They began to collide with one another. I saw 
Dr. McDowell, a very tall, slender, white-haired man, flying for life 
down the main street of the town. When I asked, " For God's sake. 



FAGOTS FROM THE CAMP FIRE. i8i 

Doctor, what's the matter?" he exclaimed, "New Madrid will be in 
hell, in less than a minute ! " and he fled far beyond the confines of 
the devoted town to the encampment of Bankhead's battery. Every- 
body followed in the wake of the elongated, flying doctor, and the 
devoted place was wholly evacuated. Meanwhile two of the bravest 
men on God's footstool — the one, Frank Cheatham; the other, Oliver 
Greenlaw — while I was looking at them, v/ent on board that burning 
steamer, and with buckets, and before my eyes, drawing up water from 
the river, extinguished the flames. The planks on the rear of the 
wheelhouse were torn off by Greenlaw and he and Cheatham tri- 
umphed. I had learned, v.-hen they ran on board the little steamer, 
what frightened the multitude, but was so fascinated by the conduct 
of these daring men — one, Greenlaw, a private citizen ; and the other, 
then a Brigadier-General — that I was wholly unconscious of my own, 
while contemplating frightful dangers they despised. 

" ' I was standing at the bow of the boat when the two men came 
ashore. I knew them both well. Both were pale and thoroughly 
exhausted as if they had discharged Herculean tasks. But it was only 
the superhuman effort of will that broke them down. I ran to a 
house hard-by and returning, gave them an invigorating draught, and 
they rested pale and weak upon the bank in perfect solitude, till fugi- 
tives began slowly, one by one to return, each giving some ludicrous 
account of manifestations of terror by some friend or acquaintance. 
Dr. McDowell's fright and flight became historical because he was a 
famed lecturer, inculcating theories, and in this instance, the practice, 
of immediate, violent "secession." ' 

"I don't know," continued the lieutenant, "when the good dame 
would have been silenced, but the daughter, who had gone into the 
dining room, returned, and with a significant glance at her mother, 
announced that supper was ready. The hostess asked me to accom- 
pany her. I said, 'In a moment, madam.' She watched me ner- 
vously when I went out. In the hall I replaced my pistols in my belt, 
and standing in the doorway, raised my handkerchief above my head. 
I was morally certain that Clark's guerrillas were at hand and that my 
loquacious hostess knew it. 

"We sat at table and I was in the act of si})ping coffee, when, 
glancing at the window, I beheld, distinctly outlined and pressed 
against a pane of glass, the black face of the traitorous negro guide who 
had proposed to deliver Clark's marauding guerrillas into our hands. 
He was surveying the interior of the dining hall, and withdrawing 
instantly, I suppose was satisfied that he had 'bagged his game.' Of 
course I made no sign ; but, saying to mine hostess that I heard the 
clatter of horses' hoofs and feared that some mishap had befallen my 
command, and that I would stand in the doorway and listen, I went 
out. 

"It is needless to say that I walked rapidly. I actually leaped from 
the front door, and drawing and cocking an army repeater with my 
right hand, threw up the white handkerchief with my left. I reached 



182 FAGOTS FROM THE CAMP FIRE. 

the yard gate, twenty steps from the house, and was flying for life, 
when a bullet from that rascally negro's pistol whistled by my head. 
He was in advance of the squad sent by Clark, and guided by the 
good widow's son, to kill or make me a prisoner. The widow and 
daughter were to fascinate and detain and the daring, devilish black- 
amoor to assasinate or capture me. 

"But the youthful Tennesseean, Tillman, had failed in nothing. I 
heard him, at the very instant the pistol was fired, exclaim, 'Charge 
them, boys ! ' 

"To escape shots coming from both directions, I fell upon my face. 
When Tillman was dashing by, I rose up and said, ' Kill or catch the 
black traitor and spy who escaped from us to-day.' 

" My assailants had left their horses a hundred yards away. Before 
they could recover them and get into their saddles, we had killed or 
wounded four, and captured the rest, of the guerrillas, except the 
twelfth man, the daring negro, who ran as fleetly as a grayhound. 
Tillman was riding my horse and resolved to execute my orders. Two 
men followed him closely. The negro made no effort to secure his 
own steed, but fled towards the nearest woods. Twice he turned and 
fired at Tillman, who was lying flat on his face, while my spirited 
animal rushed forward as if he comprehended his rider's purposes and 
shared his fearlessness. Luckily for Tillman, when he came up with 
the negro, his comrades were close at hand. Both fired at the fugitive 
and his right arm was broken. He came sullenly into my presence, 
and when I said that he deserved death and would be hanged as a spy, 
he looked vengefully in my face, and grinding his teeth together, said, 
'And ril die weeping because I didn't shoot you at the supper-table ; 
but I was chicken-hearted, and didn't want to scare two women.' 

"I never saw such a negro as this reckless dare-devil. His name 
was Charley Dicks. He had been liberated many years because of his 
fidelity to his master ; and though the code of Tennessee prohibited 
the immigration of free negroes, the law was never enforced, and 
Charley was not only a citizen of Tennessee, but a slaveholder. He 
loved money, and therefore hated the Abolitionists. His slaves were 
his wealth. Thus he became a fierce secessionist. Prior to this, he 
had been employed by Bishop General Polk as a spy in Cairo. There 
he shaved General Grant in a Cairo barber-shop, and that night, 
crossing the Mississippi in a dug-out, he sent to the Bishop General, a 
full report of his interview with the kindly brigadier of that early 
period in the progress of inter-state hostilities.* 

" But it is growing late, and my story, perhaps, tedious. I'll tell at 
another time how Charley escaped from us, and how we punished, the 
bad faith of the bright, buxom widow and of her pretty daughter. " 

Then we bade one another good night. 

^Charley still lives and still wields the razor in a prosperous southern city. 



CHAPTER XXVII. 



General Grant Talks Some\vhat. — Sam McCown. — The Frightful Demon of the 
" Inland Sea." — Bickerstaff's Memorable Ride. — Patlanders of Pinch. 

The latest hours of the evening were made delightful by stories re- 
cited by Lieutenant Hughes, who said he reproduced them as origi- 
nally given by Tennesseeans captured near Fort Pillow, above Mem[)his 
on the Mississippi, and brought to New Madrid while he was stationed 
there. These prisoners insisted that the Mississippi itself was waging 
war against the Confederacy. "It seems to concur in purpose with 
General Grant, who said, just after the battle of Belmont, in Novem- 
ber, 1 86 1, when exchanging wounded prisoners with the Confederate 
General McCown, on the old steamer Jngomar, that he had origi- 
nally started out simply to open the Mississippi from Cairo to the sea. 
I heard him say this while he and McCown, at a table decorated with 
sundry glasses, revived memories of by-gone days, when they served 
under the same flag in the old army on western plains. They had been 
classmates at West Point, and were devoted personal friends. Grant 
insisted that the river was an indivisible unit, and that McCown, as 
a representative of the Confederacy, had no right to dam it up at Co- 
lumbus or Cairo. 'It belongs,' said Grant, 'to the Northwest as 
wholly and thoroughly as to the Gulf States. You have been firing 
into our steamers at Vicksburg, and General Pillow, I am told, has 
absolutely .stretched a great iron cable across the river at Memphis 
that free navigation of this stream, which your prophet, Calhoun, 
pronounced an inland sea, may be divided between the North and 
South. It is simply absurd,' continued Brigadier-General Grant, 
" and I am now on my way to New Orleans, and I will never stop till 
I get there. I used to be a Democrat, Mack, as you know. I didn't 
care or think much about parties or politics, but I was a Democrat. 
Let me tell you that I have changed my mind about it. I can't go 
with a party whose leading thinkers and theorists have undertaken to 



i84 FAGOTS FROM THE CAMP FIRE. 

destroy the Union and dam up the Mississippi. That absurd Kansas 
squatter-sovereignty abstraction does not concern me. Party leaders 
used it down South to dehide innocent country bumpkins and divide 
and destroy Democracy in the South that Lincohi might be elected 
and secession accomplished. It signifies nothing now that war is in- 
augurated, and I think you are wholly wrong. I am en route to New 
Orleans." 

"McCown was no talker, but devoted to Grant personally. I heard 
him say afterward that Grant's hard horse-sense was always unanswer- 
able and always victorious. 

" But I was telling you," continued the lieutenant, "that the Mis- 
sissippi made war on the Confederacy. Every fortification on its banks 
erected by the rebels was speedily swept away. The navy-yard at 
Memphis, the heights at Randolph, at Fort Pillow, and at Columbus, 
and works at Island Ten have been removed by the resistless forces of 
the mighty drain of the continent. Within a very brief period there 
will be no vestige of an earthwork reared along the river to shut out 
northern commerce from the South. The Mississippi itself will not 
tolerate them. Like the Rio Grande, this great arm of the sea, is con- 
stantly moving bodily toward the Atlantic. It carves away the hills 
forever along its eastern shore. When De Soto died, three hundred 
and twenty-two years ago, as the newspaper man was telling us, the 
river ran along the base of lofty bluffs, just below Helena, in Arkansas. 
To-day the river touches no highlands on its western side from Cairo to 
the Gulf Neither the unity of the river nor its ownership was de- 
signed by Nature to be disrupted. Pillow's mighty chain was broken 
again and again by the forces of the resistless current, and the Missis- 
sippi can no more be fettered by manacles or confined within prison- 
walls by levees than free people and states along its shores. When 
Xerxes attempted to close the Hellespont with cables of iron, these, 
his bridges, and ships were destroyed by the rebellious waters. The 
freedom of rivers and seas should never be violated. Yazoo Pass, 
making Vicksburg accessible from the east, was closed by a mighty 
earthen wall. Grant cut it and the Mississippi thrust out a great arm, 
bearing Grant and his gunboats and army even to the rear of Vicks- 
burg. 

"The Confederates devised a costly vessel, so ingeniously and strongly 
built that it was indestructible by shot and shell. It swept every Fed- 
eral gunboat from the river, and was going confidently and victori- 
ously to New Orleans to destroy the northern navy that had entered 
the Mississippi. There was never a more terrible engine of war than 
this ram, the Arkansas. At its sharp bow or prora there was a rostrum 
or beak of iron, like those of Roman and Carthaginian war-vessels, 
weighing forty thousand pounds. Its strength was such that the tough- 
est, strongest ships were crushed by its blows. A long steel rod was 
projected over and beyond this. To its end was attached a shell to be 
fired by an electrical battery from within when in contact with an 
enemy's boat. The Arkansas was roofed with railroad iron. Over 



FAGOTS FROM THE CAMP FIRE. 185 

this was a layer of solidly-compressed cotton-bales, and over these 
another of heavy railroad iron, which could only be stricken by a ball 
inipinging against it at an angle of forty-five degrees. The Ai'kansas 
was simply the masterpiece of gunboat builders. Commanded by the 
most skillful of seamen and bravest of officers, it reached Baton Rouge,, 
after many frightful and destructive conflicts with ships and gunboats^ 
unharmed. ^Mctorious again and again, its officers confident of the- 
extirpation of the fleet at New Orleans, it became the prey of the 
mighty river. Mud was injected, with the water on which it floated^ 
into the machinery of its life. It became unmanageable and helpless, and 
v.-as at last blown up by orders of its own commander, and when Vicks- 
burg fell. Grant's way to the sea was unobstructed. But the strongest 
and stanchest vessel that ever floated on the Mississippi, or elsewhere 
in the world, my rebel friends insisted," continued the lieutenant, "was 
this dreadful ram, the Arkansas, built by John T. Shirley, at Mem- 
phis. 

" I was told of a most ludicrous mishap which befell a learned and 
able lawyer of Memphis. This distinguished jurist bore the honored 
name, Bickerstaff. He was wonderfully tall and slender, and must 
have encountered Washington Irving at some period in his earlier years, 
or the matchless story-teller never could have drawn with such pre- 
cision and clearness, outlines of that ever-memorable picture of Ichabod 
Crane, which, never painted save in words, stands out before our eyes 
as sharply and distinctly defined as the strong, solemn face of Washing- 
ton, or honest, earnest, ubiquitous physiognomy of U. S. Grant. 

Bickerstaff, a most logical reasoner and perfect master of his profes- 
sion, was singularly careful in his dress, as in the preparation of his 
speeches. He was an Indianian by birth, and by early training as a 
pedagogue. Of course he was an inflexible, but silent, Unionist. He 
was conscious of his physical peculiarities, and, though an attorney, 
and rich withal, was never known to speak to a woman. Still, he 
dressed himself with painstaking care, always obeying the injunction, 
'Let thy dress be costly as thy purse can buy.' His nose was of 
extraordinary height and length and thinness, and like a dromedary of 
two humps. His face was thin, sallow, and long ; his eyes bright, 
keen, and penetrating. His neck was of extraordinary longitude, and 
therefore he always wore a standing shirt-collar. Bickerstaff, six feet 
three and a half inches high, rarely rode on horseback. His long,, 
slender legs did not present a seemly aspect, while his big feet dangled 
out into the stirrups from loose, baggy breeches legs. Therefore he 
went from Memphis, nine miles, to Raleigh, to attend county court in 
a vehicle drawn by a beautiful and valuable horse. Returning about 
noon, on the coldest day, perhaps, ever known this century in this 
latitude, the first of January last, he encountered a dozen rebel guer- 
rillas. He was recognized, of course. No citizen of the country was 
more widely known or esteemed as a man and as a lawyer ; but guer- 
rillas are no respecters of persons. One of them walked deliberately 
around the buggy with an axe, breaking the spokes in the wheels until 



1 86 FAGOTS FROM THE CAMP FIRE. 

the body of the vehicle rested on the ground. The horse, of course, 
was appropriated by the highwaymen, and Bickerstaff 's clothes were 
thoroughly searched. The horse was assigned by the captain of the 
thieves to one of his men, who bestrode a hideously ugly, long-haired, 
emaciated mule. The captain remarked, ' That mule, Mr. Bicker- 
istaff, drew a dray twenty years in Memphis. We stole him at night, 
when we couldn't see. He will go back rapidly.' Bickerstaff was 
about to set off on the mule, congratulating himself that be had escaped 
so fortunately, when the little, short, round thief who now held 
Bickerstaff's horse, said that he ' must have the great lawyer's clothes. 
You won't have time to freeze in mine. That old mule has been try- 
ing to go towards Memphis all day. You'll travel when you start ; but 
I must swap clothes with you. My coat and breeches are nearly worn 
out. Git down and shuck yourself; I can roll up your sleeves and 
trowsers and have a perfect fit.' 

" The captain of the squad interposed. ' Dismount,' he said ; ' you 
have only five miles to ride, and will go a-Gilpin, I think. Swap with 
that young man ; I want to see how you two will look when you've 
exchanged drygoods.' 

"The freebooters were half drunk. Bickerstaff hesitated ; but the 
captain was relentless, and there on the dreary roadside, shivering in 
the cold wind, the dignified and learned lawyer thrust his long legs 
through the short, rusty breeches, and his interminable arms through 
the contracted sleeves of the round little rebel's ragged roundabout. 

" 'Here's your mule, mount him and go,' said the captain of the 
squad to Bickerstaff. ' Go ! I tell you. We wish to see you start. Oh ! 
you are a beauty ! The fit of your clothes and your shape are charm- 
ing. You will be sending out a cavalry force to recover your property 
as soon as you get into Memphis, and we must march ; but I would 
first see how fascinating you are. If I'm caught, don't forget that you 
are my lawyer. They'll hang me if they can. Remember, Judge, 
that I've given you that mule and them pretty clothes as a retainer.' 

"Bickerstaff, with most sorrowful visage, rode away. The robbers 
could not restrain themselves. Cold as they were, and miserable as 
was poor, shivering Bickerstaff, they laughed till his nose, blown like 
a weathercock to the right or left by the pitiless winds, and the jog- 
ging mule, whose bones rattled as he trotted away, were no longer 
visible. Bickerstaff felt badly. One yard of each leg was covered by 
socks and drawers only. There was a vacant space, overspread by 
white linen alone, of almost a yard, between the lower hem of the 
rusty, ragged roundabout and the upper rim or waistband of the greasy, 
copperas homespun breeches. That he might not freeze, Bickerstaff 
kicked vigorously and threw his arms violently about his head, and 
jogged along rapidly. He drew his fur cap tightly down to conceal 
his nose and face, and went, bent forward, kicking, and cursing his 
luck, into the city. The few wayfarers on the street stared at him in 
unutterable wonder. He only pulled down his cap and kicked the 
mule's ribs and bent forward till his shirt, no longer reaching his pants. 



FAGOTS FROM THE CAMP FIRE. 187 

fluttered in the icy breath of January i, 1864. He entered Pinch, the 
densely populated Irish district. Ireland loves fun. Even the women 
turned out. Bar-rooms were emptied, and hot whiskey was forgotten. 
A great mob, from a quarter of the city which produces annually three 
thousand Democratic votes, and in which there was little sympathy 
with the woes of the Whig and Unionist, Bickerstaff, was soon gathered 
about the woe-begone mule and its luckless rider. 

" 'Isn't he a beauty, Bridget?' 

" ' Oh ! the swate crayther ; its the mon I mane, and not the dirthy 
baste.' 

" 'An' the tailor that made thim coat and britches, wasn't he 
sparin' of the cloth ? Me old mon is hard-up and it will give him a job.' 
And yells and shouts of laughter rent the air. The mob grew apace, 
and while the chagrined, maddened Bickerstaff kicked and cuffed the 
ancient, bony mule, the hooting, roaring throng accompanied him in 
grand triumphal procession to his office in the centre of the city. He 
escaped at last, his friends, in a body, moving to his relief, and bearing 
him in a swoon of horror and cold from the mule into his private 
apartments. 

" 'Poor Bickerstaff,' said the prisoner who told me this story, 
'never recovered from the effects of exposure, chagrin, and shame re- 
sulting from this pitiful adventure. He did not long survive it. A 
numberless, tearful procession of friends and admirers followed his 
elongated coffin to the grave. The endless throng, as it moved slowly 
and solemnly to the famed and beautiful cemetery of Elmwood, about 
which the newspaper man once wrote a book, talked of the kindly 
Bickerstaft" in soft, low, pitying undertones. Genial smiles at first shed 
sunshine over the multitude; but as coincident facts were recalled and 
recited, the mirthfulness of the procession grew in force, It was the 
more violent because of the necessity for its repression. The very sad- 
ness and solemnity of the occasion gave force to ridiculous stories then 
reproducetl, and the absurdest and jolliest procession that ever entered 
a graveyard, these Tennesseeanssaid, went roaring with laughter, when 
poor Bickerstaff was entombed, into Elmwood.' " 



CHAPTER XXVIII, 



An Extraordinary Escape. — We Take Water. — A Voice in the Wilderness. — Was 
it a Spirit? — A True Man and Heroic Wife. 

"You know," the captain said to Mrs. Hughes, while we were 
seated the next evening about her broad fire-place, "the farmer, Wil- 
lingham, who lives perhaps five miles north of your upper plantation? 
I had information that induced Mr. Spratling and myself to call to 
see him at his modest home. He has a good face, and, after a brief 
interview, I said to Spratling that I ^vas almost unwilling to arrest 
such a man charged with so heinous an offence. That he had 
deserted his colors, we knew to be a fact, but when I saw his bright, 
busy little wife spinning cotton threads inside the cabin door, while 
three pretty children rolled about in the yard, I could not help 
thinking that such a man, with such ties, and such duties imposed by 
God's laws, should not be put to death for desertion of a cause, which, 
even if defensible in law and morals, is rapidly and palpably becoming 
almost hopeless. 

" But my duty was plain and its exactions inexorable. I ordered 
Willingham to leave his plow in the unfinished furrow and presenting 
handcuffs said that he must accompany us to the quarters of the 
Provost Marshal General. The poor fellow shrank back aghast. His 
face was of ashen hue. His limbs shook. He sank, at last, help- 
lessly upon the ground. But his cowardice was redeemed by generous, 
imselfish devotion to his pretty, little, unsuspecting wife who had told 
us where to find him. His first low, half-sobbed exclamation was: 

" 'And what will become of my helpless wife and children? And 
then that I should bring down upon them this inexpressible sorrow 
and disgrace ! ' 

"I confess I was almost unmanned by the anguish of the hapless 
wretch, and it occurred to me to devise a pretext for his possible 



FAGOTS FROM THE CAMP FIRE. 189 

escape. I had forty dollars in gold, given me by General B. J. Hill, 
the Provost Marshal General, that I might obtain articles, greatly 
needed, from Federal stores in Cleveland. I said to Willingham that 
he had taken the 'iron-clad oath,' and that his loyalty to the 'old 
flag' was not questioned, and that if he would go to Cleveland that 
night and the next day, and meet me at the great oak that had fallen 
across the main road at the mill on Coahuila Creek, bringing with 
him the articles wanted by General Hill, that he, Willingham, should 
be liberated and unharmed by the Confederate authorities. 

" Willingham assented, received the forty dollars, and Spratling and 
I, as you remember, returned to this place. I never doubted Willing- 
ham's integrity of purpose. But V hoinme propose, et Dieu dispose. Two 
cunning bushwhackers had traced Spratling and myself to Willing- 
ham's house and witnessed, at a safe distance, our interview with him. 
We were hardly out of .sight, as we learned only yesterday evening 
from the wife, when these two men, by threatening to declare at the 
nearest Federal outpost that Willingham had been seen in close con- 
sultation with two most murderous and daring Confederate scouts, 
compelled the frightened Willingham to divulge all that had been 
said and agreed upon. The bushwhackers at once forced Willingham 
to accompany them. He was only given time to enter his house, 
change his apparel and make his little wife cognizant of his agreement 
with us. He instructed her, in case he did not return in time, to 
meet us at the fallen oak, and warn us of possible danger and tell of 
his own capture and helplessness. Of course we knew nothing of all 
this till yesterday evening. 

"When the day came for the meeting with ^Villingham, as you 
remember, Spratling and I left here about three o'clock. There was 
ample time in which to reach, at sunset, the place of rendezvous. 
We trudged along leisurely enough, and were passing through a dense 
wood two miles or more from the great fallen tree beside the field at 
which we were to meet Willingham. 

"I am not superstitious. I never encountered a gljost, though I 
once thought differently, when, as I was telling some time ago, the 
unhappy woman rose up out of the newly-made grave at the little 
church not far from Mrs. Shields'. But as Spratling and I moved 
along quietly towards the rendezvous, two miles distant, I heard, with 
perfect distinctness, a clear, soft voice, telling me, 'Don't go, oh ! 
don't go ! ' I stopped and asked Spratling, 'Didn't you hear that 
woman's voice? It reminds me of the low, sweet, childish tones ift 
which Willingham's little wife told us where to find her husband.' 
But Spratling heard nothing. My senses were wonderfully acute. 
Some inscrutable inspiration was telling me, at every step, that we 
should not go further. A somber melancholy was shed over the dense 
woods by the sun's pale rays, hardly penetrating mists of the wintry 
afternoon, and diffused like gold dust over the yellow leaves of the 
lowly-moaning trees. 

"Again I heard the soft, low wailing of a woman's voice, clear and 



ipo FAGOTS FROM THE CAAIP FIRE. 

distinct, but seemingly a long, long way off. It only repeated the 
words, 'Don't go, oh ! don't go ! ' 

"I could not shake off the effect of the unaccountable supplication. 
I repeated it again and again to Spratling, insisting that I heard in 
the remote distance the wail of sorrow of poor Willingham's wife. 
She was surely begging us not to meet her husband at the fallen oak. 
'Of course,' I said musingly, ' it is impossible; but the words do come 
with perfect distinctness, and I was not dreaming, when I first heard 
them, of the woman or of any probable danger.' 

"When the mysterious warning was again repeated, I said to Sprat- 
ling, 'I wish to go back; let us respect this strange invocation. I'll 
tell you that the spirit of the good little woman who asked us to eat 
at her table, and brought us so cheerily that great gourd full of re- 
freshing spring-water, and directed us so smilingly to her husband in 
the field — I'll tell you that she or her wrafth is somewhere in these 
woods to save us from some great peril.' 

"Spratling answered me that if I had not talked about ghosts and 
strange voices in the air, he might have been persuaded to turn back ; 
but to be cowards, and cowards for such a reason, because we thought 
we heard a woman crying, who was certainly five or six miles away, 
was a proposition too ridiculous to be entertained. ' We would be 
laughed out of the army about it.' 

"I could only assent; and yet faintly, more faintly, dying away at 
last among the gentle sounds made by the pale leaves, that rattled 
softly when the trees were swayed by the cold breath of the silent 
afternoon, did I hear the woman's clear, low, distinct words, ' Don't 
go, oh ! don't go !' 

"We were now within a few hundred yards, as we thought, of the 
rendezvous, and, of course, moving very slowly and watchfully. The 
sun's slanting rays only touched the treetops, and the shadows of a 
misty February evening were gathering slowly about us. We were 
not sure of our precise distance from the fallen oak, where Willingham 
was to meet us, or deposit the articles bought for us in Cleveland. 
My senses were wrought up to the highest tension, and again did I 
tell Spratling, in a low whisper, 'Listen; don't you hear the tender, 
earnest wailing of that little woman? It is far away, but seems borne 
along the ground and clasps my feet.' I stood still, and a cold tremor 
ran over me. My senses were never so acute. 'Stop,' I said; 'see 
there !' And yet Spratling saw nothing and heard nothing. But I did ; 
I»saw the pale light of that cold, silent afternoon flash from a gilded 
button in the dense thicket, a hundred yards away on our right. At 
the same instant, as I believed, I beheld the sudden movement of a 
woman's ghostly apparel in the same dense woods. I grasped Sprat- 
ling's arm, and both stood still, while I whispered of what I heard and 
saw. 

" We crossed an open space, and were, perhaps, a quarter of a mile 
from a fence on our left, enclosing a long, narrow field beyond it, two 
hundred yards wide. Far away on our right was the dense thicket. 



FAGOTS FROM THE CAMP FIRE. 191 

" 'Look,' I whispered to Spratling, 'don't you see men lying on 
their faces along the verge of the thicket?' 

"He answered, 'I see nothing; you have surely gone mad.' 

"Just then a dismounted cavalryman rose up. In sonorous accents 
he ordered us to 'Halt, there!' Twenty figures sprang from the 
weeds and grass and low bushes along the road, and mounted men 
were visible ahead of us. Time for reflection was brief, and questions 
of policy few. If we surrendered, we would be shot or hanged on the 
spot. If we fled, by bare possibility, we might escape. Of course,, 
flight was instantaneous. We did not run directly from our pur- 
suers, but diagonally across the open space towards the field. Men 
using rifles or pistols know how certainly they kill a bird flying 
directly from them, and how certainly they fail when the bird flies 
diagonally across the line of the shot. Spratling and I ran so that our 
backs were not exposed to the shots of pursuers. A bullet passed 
through my cap, and left its hot breath on the crown of my head. 
Spratling's baggy breeches were pierced, a bullet leaving its mark on 
his knee-cap. We heard bullets sing merrily while we ran furiousl)* 
towards the fence. We climbed or leaped it. It was no. obstruction 
in this maddening race. We had cros.sed half the width of the field 
when a bullet, piercing the dense folds of my blanket, which was 
rolled and wrapped over one shoulder and under the other, cut the 
string confining its ends. It fell and I left it. We were still un- 
harmed and nearing the woods, when, through the growing shadows 
of the evening, we saw that mounted men had passed round the little 
field to intercept us. Our struggles were now superhuman. We had 
outstripped those on foot and knew, at a glance, that if the horsemen 
met no obstruction, we could hardly precede them in entering the 
woods. Spratling and I kept far enough apart to prevent the death of 
both by one bullet. There is as much skill, courage, and coolness 
illustrated in flight as in attack. 

"A little creek ran across the field into a larger stream, the Coa- 
huila. The cavalrymen, seeking to intercept us, were retarded by this 
obstruction. They fired at us, but, their horses at full speed, of course,^ 
harmlessly. We crossed the fence and entered the dense woods, in the 
verge of which ran the larger stream. 

"What was our horror, reaching the creek, to find the further shore 
a precipitous height, which we could not ascend. The cavalrymen 
were hard by. Entangled among vines and dense undergrowth, they 
swore vigorously. We heard the shouts of our other pursuers at the 
fence we had last surmounted. 

" ' Caught at last,' I said in a low tone to Spratling, as we stood in 
the dim twilight and dense shade of the forest on the banks of the 
mountain torrent. A tree had fallen into the creek, lying low along 
the water's surface, and partly submerged. 

" 'There is no help for it,' I whispered, 'we must enter the water 
and get beneath that tree.' After such a race, the water seemed of 
icy coldness. The tree's body was slightly curved, and upheld along 



192 FAGOTS FROM THE CAMP FIRE. 

its length by its great branches. There was a space, at one point, of 
four or five inches between it and the water's surface. We immersed 
ourselves, and stood half erect in the stream beneath the fallen tree. 
The cavalrymen rode up and down the creek, seeking in vain for a 
crossing-place. They uttered horrible imprecations. They had recog- 
nized my fidiis Achates, Spratling, and supposed at last that he had 
climbed the precipice, carrying me upon his back. 

"When men on foot reached the spot, two crossed the creek on the 
log beneath which we shivered in unutterable iciness. Men never 
suffered more in moments that seemed an age of anguish. But when 
these weary soldiers went back and forth above our heads, we were 
resting securely veiled beneath the first deep shadows of nightfall. 
The last soldier who stood above, and within two feet of my head, 
muttered maledictions, leveled at Spratling and myself. 

"Motionless awhile, and looking up and down the precipice, evidently 
wondering how we climbed it, he pronounced a {*t\\ homely oaths, sig- 
nificant of disappointment, and went slowly away. How slowly, none 
can imagine save Spratling and I, almost dying in this intolerably 
cold bath. 

"Never doubting that we had crossed the creek, and were far be- 
yond it. the Yankee captain of the squad soon gathered his men in 
the field. They were weary and hungry, and when we, half dead and 
shivering, reached the enclosure, we heard the order, 'Fall in, men;' 
and then, finding that none were missing, came the words, to us most 
grateful, 'Forward, march 1' We entered the field and found my dry 
blanket on the yellow grass. We cut it in two and substituted it 
about our freezing bodies for wet clothing. Then we set out for this 
place. 

"But the memory of those strange words, 'Don't go, oh! don't 
go!' made me hesitate. I reminded Spratling of what I had surely 
heard. 'No impression made by events of to-day will last as long,' 
I said, ' as that wrought by the mysterious, womanly voice to which I 
listened late this afternoon. I cannot leave this place till satisfied 
that Willingham's little wife is not here.' 

" ' How absurd,' insisted Spratling, 'that you should have heard 
her, when we have never been within half a mile of the fallen oak, 
where we were to have seen her husband. She surely did not accom- 
pany him ; on the contrary, he betrayed us, and neither he nor his 
wife are here.' 

" 'I can't help it,' I answered; 'you may leave me, if you like, 
but, suffering as I am, I must go to the fallen oak.' 

"We turned towards it. It lay at the end of the field near the 
■creek, and more than half a mile from the point at which the pursuit 
and flight had been begun. 

"At the root of the tree, sure enough, on the cold ground, lay the 
brave little woman. She was moaning in her seemingly broken sleep. 
AVe could catch no words. The side of her face was swollen and 
black. We read at a glance, even by the light of the stars, what had 



FAGOTS FROM THE CAAIP FIRE. 193 

befallen her. I was never so enraged, but was silenced by Spratling's 
imprecations. Cold as we had been, we had not exhausted a capacious 
flask of brandy which always accompanied us. I raised the almost 
lifeless body very tenderly while Spratling, from the little cup that 
covered the stopple, administered the brandy. A tremor ran over her 
frame i and at last she opened her eyes, and looking up into our faces, 
closed them, evidently to shut out visions of a supposed dream. She 
drank again, and then asked who we were and 'Where am I?' and 
'How did I get here?' We slowly reassured her. At length she 
stood up, and then she began to recall and recount the events of the 
terrible day. 

"As we bore her in a hammock made of Spratling's blanket, I hold- 
ing one and he the other end, to her home, she recited the story of 
her adventures. Her husband was imprisoned at Cleveland, and she 
came to the fallen oak to warn us of danger. She had brought the 
forty dollars in gold to return it to us, and even then had it concealed 
on her person. She went near the fallen oak, and finding soldiers 
already there, wandered about the woods, in growing anxiety and 
alarm, as night was coming on, till she was insane with terror. She 
said, 'I remember begging you not to go to the fallen oak, and that 
while I was saying, "Don't go! oh, don't go ! " I was silenced by a, 
great, rude soldier who came suddenly out of the bushes and knocked 
me down. He thought he had killed me ; for I saw him no more, 
and only remember saying in the dreams that afterward came, " Don't 
go ! oh, don't go! " I thought I was talking to you two soldiers who 
had been good to my poor husband.' " 

The fire was burning low when Spratling said : 

" We bore the little woman safely to her cabin and made her retain 
the gold fairly lost by the Provost Marshal-General, as he \vill confess 
when we tell him of our adventures of yesterday." 

"Meanwhile," interposed the captain, "I would gladly have Mrs. 
Hughes and Mrs. Starnes, or the philosophic Mr. Wade and the news- 
paper man, tell me how I heard, through the woods and in the air and 
creeping along the earth, the strangely muttered words and prayers of 
the earnest, brave little woman when she warned me, ' Don't go ! oh, 
don't go! ' She was probably two miles from us when I first caught 
the sounds, and most distinctly, ' Don't go ! oh, don't go ! ' We found 
her cold and senseless, more than half a mile from the path we trod. 
Does that odic and phrenic force through which one brain is said to 
communicate with another, like two distant telegraphic stations, also 
reach the external senses? I know I heard the very words and listened 
to the low, sweet voice of the brave little women when she was two 
miles distant, and I know that Spratling thinks that God is in it." 

The fire had -burned very low and ashes covered the living coals 
and dead fagots had fallen over the andirons when we bade one 
another good night. 

13 



CHAPTER XXIX, 



The Iluglies Farmlnause assailed liy Federal Soldiefs. — Heroism of Bessie Starnes. — 
Conclusion. 

In memory's garden long I sought 

To cull the fairest flowers of thought, 

A worthier tribute to have brought; 

But these winged flowers, by zephyrs blown, 

Soared upward to the great wliite throne, 

For there the " Unknown" all are known. 

Eijiilv Thofntoii Charles. 

The sun was rising when the faithful, watchful negro, Jack, made 
watchful because he discovered that either Spratling, the Captain, or 
the Mississippi cavalryman was pacing back and forth in the front 
yard through the night, was heard at the door : 

''Mistiss! mistiss! De Yanks is cummin! Deas a eben duzzen. 
Dis nigga counted 'em dis time." 

There was wildest confusion in the residence and among the 
negroes. The Captain, Spratling, and the Mississippian, trained sol- 
diers, and accustomed to war's alarms and surprises, were cooly intent 
on preparations for defence. 

"See," said the Captain to Spratling, "that the schoolmaster and 
Lieutenant Hughes remain in their room. They cannot share in this 
fight. We need only knock three or four of those gay fellows out of 
their saddles and the rest will run away. They are not crazy to fight, 
and only want plate, gold, jewels, and pictures. Four of us can make 
it impossible for them to come near enough to ap{)ly a torch and burn 
us out ; that is the only danger." 



FAGOTS FROM THE CAMP FIRE. 195 

A gaily dressed subordinate officer was in command of the assail- 
ants. Spratling, watching from a window the approach of the enemy, 
said : 

"I don't like the signs out there ; I never saw a vain fellow, tricked 
out in goki lace and feathers as gaudily as that young ape, who would 
not fight desperately. Vanity stimulates and makes his courage 
drunken. That fellow will give us trouble." 

Doors were barred and bolted, and windows closed in apartments 
below, occupied by Mrs. Hughes and other inmates of the house- 
hold, and everything was ready for action. 

"Didn't you hear the Captain order my brother and Mr. Wade 
to remain in their room? It is just over ours," said Mamie. "Let 
us join them ; I would die here of mortal anxiety, seeing nothing, and 
hearing firearms and quick, sharp words of command, and not know- 
ing who has fallen." 

"Of course," answered Bessie; "vve will disobey orders. I am 
skillful as yourself in the use of a pistol. Mr. Spratling gave me a 
beautifiil weapon and taught me how to use it. Tlie good school- 
master told us how you learned to handle guns and pistols in East 
Tennessee." 

Spratling was looking from the window in the front room when 
the two girls, unseen, entered the apartment at the head of the stair- 
way, occupied by Mr. Wade and Lieutenant Hughes. The mothers 
of the girls followed, more frightened than Mamie, and infinitely 
more than fearless Bessie Starnes, whose constant contact with soldiers, 
through months, and even years; whose modes of life, such as are led 
by the people in the wild country about Chattanooga, and whose 
habits of thinking, induced by stories told by Spratling, and countless 
men who frequented the country in which she lived, had inculcated 
lessons not without value at a time like this. Bessie knew little of 
books, but everything of country life, and everything of which soldiers 
talked. 

- She told the lieutenant to assume his uniform. "You can't fight, 
and if we are whipped, you can save us. But there is no use in our 
being whipped. Mother and I have kept drunken soldiers out of our 
house when they threatened to plunder and destroy it. To be shot 
from behind a brick wall like this, and by a woman, at that, isn't com- 
fortable. These wandering Yankee soldiers may be the bravest of the 
brave ; but there is no need to show heroism here, where nobody sees 
it, and where nobody will know of it if they run. They only want 
Mrs. Hughes' silver and jewels. These Mr. Spratling has concealed, 
and he will fight for their safety with ten-fold the pluck of men who 
only wish to rob him. Our danger," added Bessie, who sought to 
reassure Mrs. Hughes, " would be much greater if these soldiers com- 
ing up the avenue knew that two pretty girls were looking at them. 
They wont fight after they have learned that it is Spratling and the 
captain they have hemmed in. All these scouts have heard of Sprat- 
ling; l)ut they don't know him as well as I do. They never saw but 



196 FAGOTS FROM THE CAMP FIRE. 

one side of him. There isn't a Yankee scout in the Yankee service 
who hasn't heard how Spratling killed the bushwhacker by stamping 
him into the earth at our house, and not one who hasn't heard how 
he held a powerful horse, struggling to go forward, still as death in 
the road with one hand, grasping the hindmost axle of the wagon, 
wliile he, protected by the wagon-body, fired and killed two out of 
three assailants. They all know how terrible he is : but they don't 
know how good, and .'^entle, and truthful, or what a big heart he 
•has." 

Bessie had forgotten herself, or liad only bet;ome her real self, and 
talked freely, when excitement and dangers of the moment rendered 
others silent and incapable. She glanced at the lieutenant, and ex- 
pressions of admiration for Spratling's conduct and character were 
instantly silenced. The listening lieutenant's face was flushed, and 
when his eyes met Bessie's they were suddenly avertetl. She was 
not sure that he suspected her fidelity to himself or her devotion to 
Spratling, then almost confessed. She imagined at the moment that 
he did doubt her honesty, and that questioning glance, never forgot- 
ten, was reproduced before Bessie's eyes whenever the face and form 
of her affianced lover, in after years, rose up from the dreamland 
of memory. 

The Yankee marauders approached the residence very warily. A 
negro had informed them that Sjjratlingwas shot through the shoulder 
and that tlie four Confederates held two prisoners in the building. Sprat- 
ling's supposed helplessness, and the fact that there were, as they un- 
derstood the facts, only three fighting men within, and that one of 
these was required to watch the two prisoners of war, induced the 
marauders to make the assault. The Captain and news])ai)er man 
occupied a window each in the room on the right, and Spratling and 
tlic cavalryman on the left, of the building. 'J"he assailants advanced 
slowly, fi\e of them going, when within one hundred yards of the 
house, on tlie right of it, and five to the left. They seemed to think 
that the inmates would seek safety in flight. 

••Oh, the rascals!" said Spratling. " Wliat fools and cowards 
they think us? Why suspect us of the purpose to run? What's to be 
made by it? It is time enough to run when we can no longer fight, 
and when we run we must fight at last, and then, unguarded by these 
strong walls ; and then, after fighting, I think there will be fewer to 
pursue us, and of these a few will be lame. Of course we will fight." 

The Captain need not have said it, but he ordered us to take good 
aim. "Make ready," he said at length, as if we were duelists; and 
then came the word, "Fire!" 

The enemy were within sixty yards. Three saddles were emptied, 
and the leader's horse fell, the rider seemingly unharmed. He was a 
gallant little fellow. His gorgeous gold lace glittered when he rose up 
and called to his men, "Follow me!" He ran to the porch, one 
story in height, and was secure beneath its roof. His men followed 
at full speed. How they escaped, we could not tell; but only one 



FAGOTS FROM THE CAMP FIRE. 197 

was unhorsed by our bullets, though others were wounded. Horses 
were turned loose, 'i'he door was broken from its fastenings, and the 
hallway below occupied by men who evidently knew how and in- 
tended to fight. 

Lieutenant Hughes and the schoolmaster, confined in an apartment 
with women, were most restive. Accustomed to danger, and wholly 
fearless, they were most impatient of this restraint. Their sympathies, 
of course, were with the defenders of the residence. As Davy 
Crockett, shut up in the Alamo, when accustomed to fight beneath the 
open sky and in the open woods, begged to be led into the open 
plain to encounter the overwhelming force of Mexicans, so the school- 
master and youthful Union soldier were impelled to violate orders. 
When the great door gave way in the hall below, and the marauding- 
assailants rushed in, the lieutenant could not restrain himself. He and 
Mr. Wade, armed with pistols, rushed to the head of the stairs. The 
lieutenant leaned over the railing, and looking down, was instantly 
shot. The bullet pierced his body. He was borne bleeding into 
the apartment he had just left. 

•' Perhajis he is dying," whispered the schoolmaster to Bessie. '• I 
must avenge this. See the anguish and dismay written in the eyes 
and pale faces of the mother and sister? I am a rebel now." 

He placed the dying youth upon the bed, the mother and sister and 
Bessie looking on, horror-struck and helpless. 

All of us, with Mr. Wade, leaving the lieutenant to the care of the 
women, were now at the head of the stairs. Spratling came last. He 
held uplifted, forgetful of liis wound, a long, heavy marble slal). taken 
from a bureau. 

"Stand back!" he exclaimed; ''this will protect nie and destroy 
them. Stand bark I I will crush them. Let them start up the stair- 
way ! ' ' 

The gallant little Yankee popinjay was heard to say, "We have 
killed one of them ; I hear women's wailing. There are only two 
fighting men left. There are six of us almost unharmed. We must 
kill or capture that wounded giant, Spratling, and his cunning cap- 
tain. 

"Follow, boys!" he exclaimed. 

They started up the broad stairway. Spratling stood still. They 
were on the staircase, when he suddenly leaned forward, pitching the 
ponderous stone edgewise and endwise, with tremendous force, down 
the stairs. Bullets came up from pistols below, only to strike the 
lower surface of the descending stone. The leader and three others 
of the assailants fell beneath the shock and weight of the marble slab. 
The rest withdrew to the front door. While they looked after their 
captain, with his broken skull, and others killed and wounded, we 
learned from Bessie, whose courage never faltered, that the lieutenant, 
she thought, must die. 

" He is bleeding internally," said Bessie. " He told me so, and 
bade his mother and sister stand aside, that he might tell me this and 



19S FAGOTS FROM THE CAMP FIRE. 

other facts he did not wish them to hear. I will tell you some day," 
said Bessie to the schoolmaster, " but not now ;" and she turned towards 
Spratling. whose arm was bleeding afresh. She ran to his side, and 
looking up sadly but lovingly into his face, made him sit down, while 
she bound a handkerchief tightly about his shoulder. 

The Captain's fitness for his position consisted not more in his cour- 
age, endurance and cunning, than in rapidity of thought and action. 
He went to the window and called for the man in charge of the Union 
scouts. 

" See here," said he, " this place and this house which you propose 
to set on fire, in order to expel us, is the home and property of a 
Union officer. He is here our prisoner. Accidentally you have shot 
him. He will die if you do not have a surgeon sent to his relief. It 
ma}- go hard with you. Ask the negroes there in that cabin ; they 
will tell that all I say of Lieutenant Hughes, of Colonel Cliff's regi- 
ment, is true. There are four of us rebels. We will never be taken 
alive, as you have reason to know ; but these people have been kind 
to us, and served one of our number who was wounded some time 
ago. We ha\^e no business here and no desire to remain. Your 
Captain, who is not dead, as well as Lieutenant Hughes, needs a 
surgeon. If you will agree that this family shall be protected as it 
must be when you know that Lieutenant Hughes is its head, we four 
rebels vvill leave. Go out of the house. We will not fire upon you, but 
propose to leave in twenty minutes. If you consent to these terms, 
start one of your men at once for a surgeon. Send the negro. Jack, 
for the country doctor whose office is three miles distant." 

"All right," a voice from below soon responded, and the Federal 
scouts Avent out. We counted them from the window. Four seemed 
unharmed. Two others were bleeding, and another had a broken 
arm. The rest of the twelve were dead or helpless. 

•'It's a pretty good day's work," said Spratling. "I would be 
well pleased if it wasn't for the poor lieutenant lying there, his young 
life going away so slowly but so surely that while he suffers not at all, 
he feels the blood, he says, gradually filling his body. The mother 
and sister are dazed by the shock. The only one of us who, as we 
thought, could incur no danger and was perfectly safe, has fallen, and — 
poor Bessie ! poor Bessie I " And then Spratling drew his hand across 
his eyes, and after a moody silence, added very slowly, "What is to 
become of Bessie ? " 

His eyes were fixed on vacuity. 

The Captain went to the Lieutenant's bedside. Neither uttered a 
word. 

" I never saw the Captain," said Spratling, telling the story in 
after years, "so cast down. Mamie was at the foot of the bed, 
gazing into the pale face of her dying brother. The mother and 
]\Irs. Starnes knelt side by side. L^nconsciously I had taken Bessie's 
hand and was drawn to the Captain by a force of sympathy I could 
not resist. 



FAGOTS FROM THE CAMP FIRE. 199 

"While tears, the first I ever saw the Captain shed, streamed down 
his face — it was Mamie's presence and grief that unmanned him — he 
took the cold hand of the lieutenant and kissed it. He turned and 
was going away, when Mamie ran to him saying, ' You must not go. 
We cannot spare you.' 

" ' Yes,' he answered ; ' if I and my men do not leave, re-enforce- 
ments will come to these intruders below, and the house will be 
burned and there will be no help for your brother. The surgeon will 
come. I have sent for him. I will return. In the presence of your 
dying brother,' he whispered, 'I pledge you deathless fidelity.' 

"He drew her outside the doorwa}', and while tears streamed down 
their faces, kissed her." 

We bade adieu to the good and brave schoolmaster, instructing him 
to communicate with us through General Cleburne. Spratling said 
good bye to Bessie, telling her that he was her guardian ; that he 
would meet her in Lexington ; and that the schoolmaster would bring 
him her letters, telling her how to address him. She followed Spratling 
to the door leading into the yard and kissed him as confidingly and 
affectionately as if he had been her father. He was thrilled by 
it. Her face was flushed when she detected it and turned away, 
with tearful eyes, to re-enter the chamber of death. 

Of the fortunes of the Captain and of Mamie Hughes, who is rear- 
ing a family in Arkansas, her home in Georgia having been destroyed 
and property swept away, the writer of these pages may tell hereafter. 

Spratling's love of adventure grew inversely with his devotion to 
pretty, blithesome, winning Bessie Starnes. He prized Bessie's life 
so extravagantly that he began to set a higher value upon his own. 
He was surrendered with the wreck of General Joe Johnston's army 
in North Carolina ; and when last heard from, was reciting, beside 
the hearthstone of his modest ranch in Callahan County, Texas, the 
very stories here recorded. Bessie, the heroine, save when a baby 
cries, is the intentest listener. 

THE EXD. 



ERRATA. 

On page 49 the word "Chickamauga" should be substituted for 
"Chattanooga," and on i)age 181 a paragraph from "Fern Leaves" 
should be quoted. 



NEW BOOKS. 



LIFE OF 



GEN. JAMES p. BROWNLOW, 



ONE OF THE MOST DARING AND ORG'INAL OF FED- 
ERAL CAVALRY COMMANDERS. 



In three years' service, beginning in the nineteenth year of his age 
he was in seventy-three battles and skirmishes and rose from the 
ranks to a Brigadier General's position. The book, containing the 
name of every officer and private who served under Brownlow, is by 

The Author of "Fagots FRo:\r the Camp Fire," 

and now in press. Those wanting it should send name and address to — 

E. T. CHARLES & CO., 

Washington, D. C. 



BOOK TO BE PAID FOR ON DELIVERY. PRICE $1.00 



A MEMORIAL VOLUME. 



LIVES OF 

JAMES A. GARFIELD 



AND 



CHESTER A. ARTHUR. 



[NOW READY.] 

A c:OMPLETE RECORD OF THEIR EARLY LIVES AND 
POLITICAL ADVANCEMENT. 



Full and accurate account of Garfield's Congressional career, his 
election to the Presidency, and all the details of his assassination and 
sufferings ; the entire official bulletins, with extracts from leading 
journals on the case, and funeral, to which are added his most celebrated 
speeches. Contains excellent engravings of Garfield and Arthur^ 
Garfield's wife and ;\u)ther, and a group of the entire family ; also 
of Secretary Blaine, Senator Conkling, the "Gray House" where 
President Arthur is stopping, with a picture of Guiteau and the 
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THE SOLDIER'S SCRAP-BOOK. 



A Charming New Book for Soldiers. 



Battle Scenes and War Incidents. 



These Campaign Stories, shortly to Ije published, are principally 
written by the members of tlie rank and file, and will be appreciated 
by their thousands of comrades scattered all over the country. 
This book will be |.)ublished by 

MRS. EMILY THORNTON CHARLES, 

of the World and Soldier, at Washington, who has a national 
reputation as the author of the poem "Unknown," delivered by her 
at Arlington Cemetery on Decoration Day, as well as of many other 
poems of the war, which will be published for the first time in book 
form in this volume which will contain some 250 pages, comprising 
anecdotes, sketches of life in the army, reminiscences, war incidents, 
(humorous and mournful,) vivid descriptions of battles, memorial 
poems, songs of the camp and field, — thousands of interesting memen- 
toes of personal bravery being thus preserved to history in condensed 
form and made as attractive as jiossible by the careful compilation of 
the best contributions to the press ; by the revision of many a pathetic 
story as told by the brave-hearted but unlettered boys who dared the 
perils of war ; and by the introduction of some of the best original 
work of the thorough journalist and author who thus seeks to do 
honor to the veterans of the war who formed the rank and file of the 
Union army. 

EVERY SOLDIER WILL WANT THE VOLUME. 

Of the lady who will shortly issue this volume of war incidents, the 
Cincinnati Enquirer says : 

"Mrs. E. T. Charles, editor of the Washington World and Soldier, 
who addressed the ex-prisoners of war Thursday evening at the High- 
land House, is well known in literary circles by her nam de plume of 
Emily Hawthorne, over which signature she has published a volume 
of jjoems, " Hawthorn Blossoms," and has written many poems of the 
Avar. In 1880, she read, at the great tomb in Arlington Cemetery, 
her i^oem ' Unknown,' and was decorated with the badge of G. A. R. ; 
and in 1881, she again took part in the decoration ceremonies, and 



recited her poera 'Arlington.' In appreciation of her work as 
editor and poet, she was elected an honorary member of the Veteran 
Union Corps, of Washington, D. C, of which General Garfield and 
other distinguished officials are members, Mrs. Charles being the only 
lady so honored. Thursday, the 22d, she will be the guest of the 
G. A. R. at Lafayette, Indiana ; is placed on the programme of the 
reunion of the Tenth Indiana and the Ct. A. R. camp fire." 

Griswold, so well known as the "Fat Contributor" and editor of 
the Cincinnati Saturday Night, said of her address at the Soldiers' and 
Sailors' Reunion in that city: 

"A pleasant feature of the reunion was the meeting of Union ex- 
prisoners of war at the Highland House, on Saturday night. The 
weather was stormy, yet there was a large attendance. Mrs. Charles, 
(Emily Hawthorne,) editor of the Washington, (D. C.,) World and 
Soldier, delivered a brief and pertinent address, after which she read 
an original poem, entitled the 'Prison Pen,' appropriate to the 
occasion. Both the address and poem were received with generous 
applause. ' ' 

EVERY EX-PRISONER OF WAR AVANTS IT. 

In appreciation of her address as the soldier's friend and advocate 
the following card from the Ex- Prisoners of War Association was ])ub- 
lished in the Cincinnati Commercial : 

'• I'he Association of Union Ex-Prisoners of War desire, through the 
columns of your paper, to express publicly their sincere thanks to Mrs. 
Emily Thornton Charles, poet and editor, Washington City, for the 
elocpient address with which she favored them at Highland House, 
Thursday evening, and especi^flly to express their high appreciation 
of the remarkably realistic poem descriptive of the horrors of prison 
life. She has honored the association by dedicating it thereto." 

The address and poem will both be published in the new volume. 
The president of the association says he "wouldn't be without a copy 
of the poem for ten dollars. ' ' 

Correspondence World and Soldier : 

" I am an ex-prisoner, and consequently enjoyed the treat given us 
by that most excellent lady, the soldiers' guardian aiigel, Mrs. Emily 
T. Charles. We beg to assure her of our very high appreciation of 
the great honor she did us on the occasion by giving us her presence, 
addressing us, and the beautiful poem read, which we have all care- 
fully preserved. ' May God's richest blessings attend her through 
life and a crown, bedecked with a million stars, be hers on reaching 
the shifting shore,' is repeated every week by thousands of ex-soldiers 
who read your paper throughout the length and breadth of this united 
land of ours." 

The distinguished poet, Henry W. Longfellow, in writing of the 
])oem "Unknown," says: "No wonder the poem touched the hearts 
of its hearers." 



The Washington S^ar says : 

"The beautiful poem ' Unknown,' delivered at Arlington Cemetery 
on Decoration Day, by its author. Emily Thornton Charles, was the 
feature of the occasion." 

On this occasion the Post said : 

" Her distinct utterance, well-modulated voice, and impressive 
manner of reading bring out more clearly the beautiful thoughts in 
her poems." 

EVERY MEMBER OF THE G. A. R. SHOULD HAVE IT. 

A prominent member of the G. A. R. says: "The poems, 'Un- 
known' and 'Arlington,' are superb and beautiful." 

"Decoration Day was generally observed. The demonstration at 
Arlington National Cemetery was grand. One of the most interest- 
ing features of the programme was the reading of an original and 
beautiful poem, entitled 'Unknown,' by the author, Emily Thornton 
Charles, (Emily Hawthorne, ) at the tomb where rest the remains of 
seven thousand heroes whose names have been lost to history." — 
Chicago Express. 

" The Union Veteran Corps, of Washington City, paid a most dis- 
tinguished honor to Mrs. Family T. Charles, of the World and Soldier, 
by electing her an honorary member of that organization. This evi- 
dence of appreciation of her poetic tributes, recited at Arlington, and 
her editorial labors in behalf of the veterans of the war, is not onl}^ 
extremely gratifying to the lady, but encourages her to wield her pen 
still more powerfully in the defense of the rights of soldiers in the 
field of the soldiers' newspaper." — Cincinnati Commercial. 

"Mrs. Emily Thornton Charles, of the World and Soldier, addressed 
the ex-prisoners of war at the Grand National Soldiers' and Sailors' 
Reunion at Lafayette, Lidiana, September 22, and the G. A. R. camp 
fire, she being a guest of the G. A. R." — Washington Critic. 

"Mrs. Emily Thornton Charles, the a.ssociate editor of the Wash- 
ington World, and a native of Indiana, (she is the well-known poetess, ) 
will be invited to attend the Soldiers' Reunion as the guest of the 
Grand Army. She will recite a poem written for the occasion." — 

Lafayette Courier. 

Mrs. Mary E. Kail, correspondent Cannotton Gazelle 9,3.y?,: 
"The World and Soldier is one of the most popular National 
paj^ers, and its associate editor, Mrs. Family Thornton Charles — better 
known as 'Emily Hawthorne' — has not only endeared herself to the 
soldier element of the country by the able manner in which she con- 
ducts the paper, but her beautiful poems which she read at Arlington 
have given her a reputation that will live when her low, sweet voice 
shall no longer blend with the voices of the flowers that shall be scat- 
tered upon the grasses of our dead heroes. 

"Mrs. C. is the soldier's dauy-hter and sister, and is well able to 



espouse the soldier's cause ; and it is indeed a fitting tribute to the 
living soldier that a fair and lovely woman shall control the press for 
the benefit of all who stood by the flag in the days of the past and who 
now delight to do honor to the stars and stripes of our nation's glory." 

Mrs. Charles read her poem, "Reunion," in Indianapolis, at the 
bancjuet of the i8th Indiana Regiment, of which the Herald, of that 
city, said : 

"At the Regimental Reunion, Mrs. Charles took the meeting by 
storm by her effective reading of an original poem." 

Slie was then elected daughter of the brigade composed of the 8th 
and 1 8th Regiments and first battery and appointed the poet of the 
next reunion, which occurred at Muncie, in 1879. 

How well she performed the duty assigned her is evidenced by the 
following telegram to the Indianapolis y^ounial : 

"Mrs. E. T. Charles (Emily Hawthorne) delivered a beautiful his- 
torical poem, descriptive o( Shcr/iian^ s inarch to the sea, from the bal- 
cony of the hotel, to the Eighth and Eighteenth Regiments and First 
Indiana Battery, which were drawn up in line on the street. The 
volume and strength of her voice was a great surprise to her auditors, 
every word of the twenty-minute poem being distinctly audible to the 
large assemblage." 

In this i)roduction are included the Battle of Opecpian, Cedar Creek, 
Port Gibson, Siege and Fall of Vicksburg, and other battle poems. 
All of which will be published in the new book ibr soldiers, and prove 
how truly the author is tlie friend of the veterans of the war, and every 
veteran should send for her new book. 

PRESS NOTICES. 

" They who watch the advance of our literature into higher jjlanes 
of achievement," says the Indianapolis Sentinel, "will desire to see 
and welcome many more of these pearls of thought from the ready 
])en of this niost felicitous writer, ' Emily Hawthorne.' " 

Hon. Horace P. Biddle, the accomplished scholar and lawyer, says : 
"Mrs. Charles has a fine literary taste, fertile imagination, and a 
true poetical genius — a rare combination of superior faculties." 

iV western magazine says: "Emily Thornton Charles has the repu- 
tation of doing more newspaper work, and doing it well, than any 
woman in the country." 

"She is a ready and graceful writer, and her book will surely be a 
most successful publication." — Lafayette Dispatch. 

" Mrs. E. T. Charles has delighted the reading public with many 
a well-written article and soulful poem." — Anna Metz Ryland, editor 
New York Progress. 

The Indianapolis Sentinel says of her work: "It will be received 
■with favor by a public which has already learned to love the name of 
'Emilv Hawthorn.' " 



Dr. Wallis, the veteran journalist of the New York Herald, pro- 
nounces the World and Soldier, while under the management of Mrs. 
Charles, "one of the best weeklies in the country." Coming from 
such a source, this opinion is a valuable recognition of her ability. 

The Lafayette (Ind. ) ^t'/z/v/rt/ says : " Mrs. Charles' love lyrics and 
odes possess almost as great fervor and delicacy as those of the Latin 
poet Horace. She is, too, most versatile in her methods, and 
possesses simplicity, directness, and equipoise added to that felicity of 
diction indispensable to the true lyrist. She, an enthusiast not alone 
in her devotion to lyric music, but to all the accessories of her art, to 
nature, to inspiration, and to melody. Her poems are always tinct- 
ured with life, joy, and buoyant feeling. She is the poet of occasions. 
Some of her best poetry has been uttered at the moment and when 
solicited by her friends." 

"Mrs. Charles holds one of the most responsible positions as a jour- 
nalist in the country. Her selections are witty, refined, and instruct- 
ive ; her editorials, pointed and wise." — Lafayette Herald. 

Viit and Wisdom, published in New York, says.- "Mrs. Charles is 
doing some excellent editorial work on the World and Soldier in 
Washington, and also drops into poetry occasionally, whose sentiment 
does credit to her head and heart." 

From' the Cannotton Gazette : "The soldiers and their friends 
may well be proud that the pen of a woman is defending their best 
interests' without regard to party prejudice." 

Hon. John Caven, mayor of Indianapolis, says: "Her productions 
are of unusual merit and beauty. Splendid subjects exquisitely treated." 

"Mrs. Charles' literary work sliows deep thought, and her well- 
directed efforts are making the World and Soldier a most successful 
newspaper. She is a delicate little body, but a bright, earnest soul 
looks out from her eyes." — Burlington Hawkeye. 

The Kentucky New Era says: "'By her newspaper ,work, she has 
won a larire circle of friends and admirers." 



THE WORLD AND SOLDIER. 

THE BEST NATIONAL SOLDIERS' PAPER IN THE COUNTRY. 



GET A COPY FREE. 



For any of the above publications address — 

E. T. CHARLES & CO., 

P. O. Box 643, Washington, D. C. 



EVERY SOLDIER SHOULD HAVE THE BEAUTIFUL 

WAR CHART! 

UK 

SOLDIER'S RECORD. 

A handsome steel engraving, 24 by 26 inches in size, the design 
being symbolical of the experience of the 

NATIONAL SOLDIER. 



In the handsome picture are emblems as follows : 

The upper corner-pieces represent War, on land and sea. 

The lower corner-pieces represent Peace, on land and sea. 

The Union, in letters of solid oak, held by the Eagle, with the sun at meridian, represents the Re- 
public restored to its full splendor and power. 

The chain anchored to the scroll means the L'nion clinging to the Constitution as the Rock of 
Safety ; each link on a side is a State. 

The two females on each side of photograph represents that Heaven views with favor and country 
yields her gratitude to the soldier by crowning him with laurel wreaths. 

The scroll on left is space for recording enlistment, promotion, etc., with naked sword declaring a 
readiness for war. 

The book on right is space for recording discharge, wounds, etc., with sheathed sword, the end of 
war. 

The soldier and sailor on left, reclining on bundle of sticks banded together, and treading on serpent, 
represents the restored Union, with all enemies conquered. 

The soldier and sailor on the right assisting slave to rise, represents the end of bondage. Both these 
pieces represent the two grand results of the War. 

The monument is to record the battles engaged in by the soldier. The aged man is history direct- 
ing the attention of posterity to the deeds of patriots, which Time fails to erase or despoil, as indicated 
by his discouraged altitude and by his broken mallet and chisel lying at the base of the monument. 

The girl and mermaid holding flags represent the influence of America on land and sea. 

The tomb below records the death of soldier, either in battle or in bed at home. 

The females are typical of Decoration Day. 

SKXT) 

75 CENTS TO 

E. T. CHARLES & CO., P. O. BOX 643, 

WASHINGTON, D. C. 

AXl) FULL ^^AME,DATE AND PLACE OF ENLISTMENT, 

COMPANY AND REGIMENT, PROMOTION, LIST 

OF BATTLES, TLME AND PLAC^E OF 

DISCHARGE ; OR FOR A 

DECEASED COMRADE, STATE PLACE AND MANNER 

OF DEATH. 

Scldisrs^ Preserve ycur Reccrd as a Priceless Treasure 
fcr year Children. 



A PRICE-LIST. 



Life of Garfield. — Including history of Guiteau. Beautifully illustrated ; containing 
iiearlv 500 pages. Complete and graphic. The Ijest out Price Si. 50 

Garfield's Portrait. — ^With his autograph. Fine steel engraving, (nearly life size,) 
for framing. (Daring the Presidential campaign, Garfield himself pronounced this 
the best likeness of himselfhe had ever seen.) Price 25 els. 

Fagots from the Camp Fire. — War stories. A new l:)ook. Just out. True 
yet wonderful. For every soldier Price 75 cts. 

Battles of the Rebellion. — Alphabetical list of all the battles fought, giving 
number engaged, killed, and wounded on both sides. Same of War of Indepen- 
dence, all wars with the Indians, Mexican War, (including war between Texas and 
Mexico,) and the second war with England, Etc., Etc. List of Presidents and much 
•other valuable information Price 50 cts. 

Dr. Kendall's Horse Book. — 75th Edition. Complete book on the Horse and 
his diseases. The best liook of the kind ever ])ublished. Nothing wanting. Nearly 
2,000,000 sold Price 50 cts. 

Roof and Side Wall Painting. — A book of valuable instructions and receipts, 
Complete on this .^abject. Sometliing every house-holder should have. ..Price 25 cts. 

U. S. Blue-Book. — Compiletl from official sources. Every citizen should have 
this book of Ciovernment information on offices, salary, time, etc. A concise, reliable 
history Price 75 cts. 

Soldiers "War Chart. — Fine engraving designed for framing. Preserve your war 
record. A new tiling, just out. By an old soldier. For every soldier, sailor or their 
heirs Price 75 cts. 

Army and Navy Pensions. — Sth Edition. Book form. .\11 information relating 
lo pensions. Compiled from official sources Price 25 cts. 

Bounty Manual. — Book form. All informatit)n relative to bounties. Com- 
piled from official sources Price 25 cts. 

Soldiers Homestead. — 3d Etlition. Book form. All the land laws and much 
other valuable information. Compiled from official sources Price 25 cts. 

Views of Washington. — Arlington, Mt. Vernon, Soldiers' Home, Etc., Etc. 
Large size single copies for framing, each 25 cts. All together, (smaller .size,) in 
book form, with description, 50 cents. 

Besides all the popular books, periodicals, portraits, etc. [Sen J for free iisf.) 

Send for further particulars if you desire any of these articles. In sending for 
Soldiers' War-Chart Record, send for blanks to fiiU out your record on ; which 
return with order. Send all money by P. O. Money-Grder or Registered Letter. 
Avoid sending stamps when possible ; but if necessary, send one-cent stamps. Our 
goods sent to any atldress on receipt of price. 

AGENTS WANTED in every Town and City in the United States. 

.Send for contidential terms to agents, and enclose stamp for reply. 

Address HAZELRIGG, CHARLES & Co., 

Box 291, Wash igton, D. C. 



ATTENTION, SOLDIERS! 

tensions, Bounties, Land Warrants, Home- 
steads, Patents, Trade IVSarks, 
Caveats, Etc. 

Soldier?; and all otlicrs luiviiiy claims of any kind against tlic ( 'i()\crunK-nl, w e 
5uld say to you, do not delay in making your apiilication. II ndh arc in ;!i>iil't .ilmul 
2 matter, then have it investigated at once hy sonic compcti ut aiii niuN w in i ci n 
form you. 

We are constantly getting jicnsions for Inavc and <lc^-r\ing c\ -.oilier-- wlio ^:u- 
;y have not applied ere thi> for the reason tliat tlu--.- ha\c I'ccii in doul:!, whir u-, 
they had sooner applied they might ha-.c been enjoying tlie I'eneia- t,f ili ar niiniew 
ake at least a desperate struggle for your rights and the money to \\liieh \on arc 
itly entitled. 

Pensions ^^'"'-' 1*^^'*1 toall soldlci-s disablfd in line and discharge 
duty, either l)y accident or otherwise. .Vn\- di^:diilit\', no rnaUii' how >!ig!it, en- 
les the soldier to a pension. Pension is ]>aid h ii- tlu' L i--- ■ f a linger or loe, piles, 
ricose veins, chronic diarrhcea, rupture, varicnerle, Ins- (,< si.ilii,,i; uneor Imth e\e^, 
;s of hearing in one or both ears, disease of heart, falling la: k oi m-. adi-s. i lieimirai-m, 
any other disability which prevents or interfere-- in an} degree w itli vou; necupa- 
in or performance of manual labor, entitles yon to a pension. 

Mexican War Pensions to soldiers of the Mexican 

ir or their widows are now paid only on proof ol di-ability, or deatli .("rom disa- 
:ity contracted in the service. But there i^ a ino\enieiil on Inut in ('nn-ie-s togi\e 
'vice pension to all the survivors of said war ami (lieir widuws. If \(,ii lielmig to 
s class, we will he glad to get you a pension \\ lien the bill becomes a l.iw. 

QggQI''^JQI^ is no bar to recei\ing pension. M;!ny are oi' tlie 
inipn tliat desertion (jr dishonoralile discharge keeps the soldier out of his pen-ion. 
lis is not the case. 

Increase. Thousands are now entitled to an in( rca-,c. d'he 
AS are more liberal now than formerly. From four dollars to I'wr d'llaisj.er 
inth is now paid for even the loss of a thumb or finger. I'nder the oid, jaw oal\- two 
liars was paid. Many who have obtained their i)ensi(jn e\en -iNithin the last vear 
; now entitled to increase. Send for " Increa-e Blank.'' 

3eCtiOn 4717. l'^ the soldiers whose claims were not j)r()S- 

lUed to successlul issue within li\e years from date of liiing and were therefene 
rred from further prosecution by Section 4717 L'. S. l-U'\i.-ed Statutes, \\e laing 
u the joyful tidings that said section lui^leen lepeah; '. ;iiid no longer stan is in 
ur way. Send us all the papers you li.i\e in the claim, aoid we will take it u\) just 
lere left off and prosecute it to a linal is>ne without dela\'. 

Widows of soldiers who contracted any disability in the service 
J eiituled to pension from date of soldier -- death. 

Children of soldiers are entitled from July, 1S66, or from date 

s(jldier's death, (if sub.sequent to aforesaid date,) till they arrive at the age of 16 
;us. 

P3f QptS, In case where the soldiers died leaving neither wife 

r ihildren, the parents are entitled tc" jjension. 

War of 1812. Survivors of the War of 1.S12 and theii' widows 

; entitled to a service pension of $8 per month, pru\'ideel the xjldier ser\ed hnuteen 
ys or longer, or participated in one actual battle. If you belong to either of the 
ove classes and wish to apjily for pension, send immediately for blanks and 
.tructions. 

Address N. W. FITZGERALD & CO., 

U. S. Cl.\im AnoKNF.v.s, Lock Box 588, Washington, D. C. 



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